Are You With It?

"Are You With It?" is the title of an obscure Donald O'Conner musical from 1949. When my parents first came out to California, they provided the Magic Equipment that was used in the film for a brief comic scene. I looked for a number of years to find a copy of the movie to see what it actually entailed. Since my parents both had SAG cards at one point I thought they might have some on screen time. I had searched a variety of places to try and locate material related to the film. I called Eddie Brandt's in North Hollywood, perhaps the world's most well know collectors of film on video, they had never even heard of the picture. Finally I turned to one of my favorite sources on line, ebay.

The first items I came across were some lobby cards for the movie. I did not bid on them but I did steal some digital shots of the cards as you can see here:

The film is largely set in a traveling carnival/circus. So the magic material fits in well in the background. I kept looking and finally a private collector was offering a copy of the movie on DVD and I sprang for it. Well the copy is not great as you can imagine, and to be honest the movie is only mildly interesting. The biggest disappointment was that I could not locate a shot of my parents. However, I do suspect that my Mother's feet managed to make the final cut. Those of you in the magic world will know that she must have proceeded me as the featured "Feet" in the act. I do have a couple of screen shots that show the prop used in the movie.

 I originally got started tracking this down because somewhere in my collection of material there was an article in the Battle Creek paper, which mentioned their involvement in the movie and had a picture. I have not yet found the article but I do have a copy of the photo that ran with it.

Many years later, around 1985 or so, my father got a call from a friend of his who was some kind of agent. The television show "Simon and Simon" was casting for an older man to play a vaudeville style Magician in an episode. I don't know if he auditioned but I do know that he had a meeting for the part. The show decided to go in a different direction. Instead of casting a Magician, they cast an actor and had some one do the magic close up scenes. The actor my Dad lost the part to was Donald O'Conner.