The Wonderful Teens - Dick Powell

Wonderful Teens

The Wonderful Teens
Dick Powell
Narrated by Dick Powell
Orchestra and Chorus Conducted by Joe Leahy
Script by Jerry Zinnamon
Music Supervised by Howard Drew
Recorded by United Recording Studios
Sound Engineer: Bud Morris
Graphics Direction: Gerald Cook
RPC Record Producers Corporation
RPC-M105
1961

From the back cover: Any biography of Richard "Dick" Powell must be summed up in the few short words, "Here's a man who parlayed a banjo and singing voice into a multi-million dollar business.

The transition from part-time singer with college bands to President of the huge Four Star Television Corporation and one of the industry's leading spokesmen has been made during the past 30 years by Powell.

Dick Powell was born in Mountain View, Arkansas, and attend public schools in Little Rock when a touring orchestra offered him a job as featured vocalist.

Powell accreted but in a few weeks found himself stranded in Anderson, Indiana, without a job and only 40 cents in his pocket. At about the time Powell had spent his last ten cents on a hamburger he received a wire and a fifty dollar advance from Charlie Davis, an orchestra leader.

He moved from one band to another during the next five years and from one state to another. Finally, after touring Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and Pennsylvania, he landed the job of singing master of ceremonies for all the stage shows at the Stanley and Enright Theaters. It was here that a Warner's talent scout spotted hi and arranged for a Hollywood screen test.

He was given the part of a down-and-out crooner in a picture called "Blessed Event." The picture was a success and Powell was cast by Warner Bros. in a succession of hit musicals including, "Forty Second Street," "Gold-diggers," "Twenty Million Sweethearts," "Flirtation Walk" and "Shipmates Forever."

As proof of Powell's box office appeal, his pictures placed him among the top ten stars of the period, which, incidentally, was right in the middle of the country's worst depression years, 1935 and 1936.

In the early forties Charles Koerner, executive producer at RKO, cast him as a tough private eye in the Raymond Chandler mystery thriller, "Murder My Sweet."

This picture proved to be as important to the second phase of Powell's career as "Forty Second Street" had been in his band singing days. Critics and public alike were amazed and delighted with the "new" Dick Powell. A whole new future opened for Powell not only in pictures but also on radio. Soon he was starring on dramatic radio shows like "Richard Rogue" and "Richard Diamond, Private Detective."

In pictures he continued to build his new screen popularity with such movies as "Johnny O'Clock," "Assigned To Treasury," "Stations West," "The Reformer and The Redhead," "Right Cross," "Cry Danger," Susan Slept Here," and "The Bad And The Beautiful,"

From here he went on to directing and producing pictures. Among them were "The Conquerors," "Enemy Below," and "The Hunters."

In 1952, Powell inaugurated his first TV series, "Four Star Playhouse," in which he and his two partners, David Niven and Charles Boyer, alternated with another guest star.

"Four Star Playhouse" was the beginning of Four Star Television, which today produces some 13 series for all three networks.

With Powell's acumen and what appears to be a sixth sense for anticipating the public's newest taste, he mushroomed Four Star Television, of which he serves as president, into one of the major companies in the industry.

Away from acting, directing and producing chores Powell is an outdoor man who loves to hunt, go sailing, deep sea fishing and play golf.
From Billboard - May 22, 1961: Veteran film actor-producer-director Dick Powell handles the nostalgic narration on this salute to his teen-years in the 1920s and reminds older fans of his "42d Street" film musical comedy "days when" by warbling the title tune. Otherwise the vocal chores and "character comedy" bits are handled capably by Linda Wells, The Collegiates, and Bob Grabeau. Interesting chatter-angle was for jocks.

Photograph Fever - Orchestra And Singers
The Shiek - The Roaring Twenties
The Charleston - The Roaring Seven
If You Knew Susie - The Collegiates
Baby Face - Featuring Linda Wells
That Certain Party - Vocal by Linda Wells
The Varsity Drag - The Collegiates
Diane - Vocal by Bob Grabeau
The Wonderful Teens - Dick Powell