Amo Igraham
Amo Igraham (aka: Amo Langenhans, Born July 8, 1909 New York City, New York, USA, Died November 2, 1983 Los Angeles, California, USA)
Amo Ingraham was the daughter of the famous composer Herbert Ingraham (1881-1910). In 1936, Amo took the time to renew many of her father's 1909 and 1910 copyrights in her name.
Amo appeared in a variety of lively 1930s musicals, sometimes with a bevy of scantily clad ladies (and you betcha that Amo was one of them)! When I checked her resume, I was amused to see that she appeared in not one, not two, but three Golddiggers movies – Gold Diggers of 1933, Gold Diggers of 1935, and Gold Diggers of 1937, as well as the cosmopolitan Gold Diggers in Paris. What can I say? We all know what type of movie they are – dance, sing, plenty of pretty ladies, fancy camerawork, and shiny, shiny costumes. Story and characters – meh, who’s even asking! Amo also made two silent movies, The Wild Party and Chasing Husbands.
Amo played the chorus girls plenty of times – except her Golddiggers sojourn, she was a chorine in: Palmy Days a totally whacky but very entertaining Eddie Cantor musical (perhaps one of his best!), Flying High, a not particularly successful Broadway transplant about a genius inventor (Bert Lahr) and his tries to dodge a very persistent admirer (Charlotte Greenwood), Night World, an truly outstanding but little known movie, sharp as a tack and seedy as heck, about various going on in a prohibition Era night club, with an outstanding cast (Boris Karloff, George Raft, Lew Ayres, Mae Clark), The Match King, a very good movie about a ruthless industrials who will do anything to become number one (Warren William, a superb actor of the pre-Code era, perhaps gives his bets performance here), It’s Great to Be Alive a really weird musical with a totally out of this world whack story (An aviator who crash landed on an island in the South Pacific returns home to find that he is the last fertile man left on Earth after an epidemic of masculitus), Footlight Parade, a very sleazy but enjoyable precoder about the seedy New York underground with James Cagney in the lead, Fashions of 1934, a shallow but pretty to look at musical with Bette Davis and William Powell (as you can guess per the name of the movie, it’s all about fashions!), Wonder Bar, a witty and sparkly Al Jolson musical with the alluring Kay Francis as the female lead (and with a convoluted but a bit half brained story, but who’s asking), Varsity Show, another 30s musical, but since this one isn’t a Pre-Code, with much less scantly clad girls and more wholesome fun and Hollywood Hotel a typical Busby Berkeley extravaganza with Dick Powell in the lead .
Despite being foremost a prolific showgirl, Amo appeared in various other uncredited, small roles – in Merrily We Go to Hell, a drama dealing with alcoholism in a very simplistic way (Frederic March, an actor I adore, plays the drunk, and Sylvia Sidney is his devoted wife), she was a bridesmaid. The movie isn’t a bad piece of work, but it becomes predictable and almost didactic along the way, and as I noted, doesn’t really show the essence of the problem for an alcoholic and his family. She played a very small part in the murder mystery, The Woman Accused , perhaps better known today as one of Cary Grant’s early films than anything else. The movie is nothing to shout about, although it does have its moments. The story is a slight rip-off from One Way Passage – Nancy Carroll plays a woman who is very happy with her new fiancé, Cary Grant. When an old flame returns, threatening to have him killed, she kills him before he gets the chance. She then sets off on a three-day cruise with Cary, convinced it will be their only time together before she is caught. The cast is fairly decent, with some twists and turns, making it watchable. Amo is portrayed by the namesake in Stage Struck, a benign but not particularly exciting musical featuring Dick Powell and Jeanne Madden. Director Busby Berkeley seems out of form here, lacking his usual extravagant moments.
Filmography
| Movie and cast | Part |
|---|---|
| Robert Benchley, Fred MacMurray, and Rosalind Russell in Take a Letter, Darling (1942) | Tall Willowy Brunette (uncredited) |
| Ethelreda Leopold, Helen Blizard, and Mary Rosetti in Gold Diggers in Paris (1938) | Gold Digger (uncredited) |
| Hugh Herbert, Glenda Farrell, Benny Goodman, Ted Healy, Lola Lane, Rosemary Lane, Louella Parsons, and Dick Powell in Hollywood Hotel (1937) | Girl in Nightclub (uncredited) |
| Rosemary Lane, Dick Powell, and Fred Waring in Varsity Show (1937) | Chorus Girl (uncredited) |
| Dick Powell and Doris Weston in The Singing Marine (1937) | Girl (uncredited) |
| Joan Blondell, Glenda Farrell, Ethelreda Leopold, Victor Moore, and Dick Powell in Gold Diggers of 1937 (1936) | Chorus Girl (uncredited) |
| Joan Blondell, George Kelly, James V. Kern, Jeanne Madden, Billy Mann, Frank McHugh, Dick Powell, Warren William, The Yacht Club Boys, and Charles Adler in Stage Struck (1936) | Ms Ingraham (uncredited) |
| Gold Diggers of 1935 (1935) | Haughty Woman (uncredited) |
| Kay Francis and Al Jolson in Wonder Bar (1934) | Hazel - Chorus Girl (uncredited) |
| Bette Davis, William Powell, Hugh Herbert, Frank McHugh, and Verree Teasdale in Fashions of 1934 (1934) | Chorus Girl (uncredited) |
| James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, and Dick Powell in Footlight Parade (1933) | Chorus Girl (uncredited) |
| Gloria Stuart, Joan Marsh, Herbert Mundin, and Raul Roulien in It's Great to Be Alive (1933)} | Dancer - American Girl (uncredited) |
| Edna Callahan, Maxine Cantway, Margaret Cathew, Virginia Dabney, Marlo Dwyer, Muriel Gordon, Mildred Dixon, and Kathy Cunningham in Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) | Gold Digger (uncredited) |
| Cary Grant and Nancy Carroll in The Woman Accused (1933) | 3rd Girl |
| Lili Damita and Warren William in The Match King (1932) | Chorus Girl asking for a match (uncredited) |
| Fredric March and Sylvia Sidney in Merrily We Go to Hell (1932) | Bridesmaid (uncredited) |
| Boris Karloff, Lew Ayres, Mae Clarke, and Dorothy Revier in Night World (1932) | Chorine (uncredited) |
| Charlotte Greenwood and Bert Lahr in Flying High (1931) | Chorus Girl (uncredited) |
| Palmy Days (1931) | Goldwyn Girl (uncredited) |
| Oliver Hardy, Jean Harlow, and Stan Laurel in Double Whoopee (1929) | Hotel Guest (uncredited) |
| Clara Bow and Fredric March in The Wild Party (1929) | Jean (uncredited) |
| Jean Harlow in Chasing Husbands (1928) |
- Amo Ingaham screenies
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