Li'l Abner

Li'l Abner (1959)

A comedy musical based on the comic strip charcters created by Al Capp. When residents of Dogpatch, USA are notified by the government that they must evacuate because of atomic bomb testing, they try to persuade the government that their town is worth saving. Meanwhile, Earthquake McGoon wants to marry Daisy Mae; Daisy Mae wants to marry Li'l Abner, and Li'l Abner just wants to go fishing.

Date of release
1959-12-11
TMDB
6.4 / 10 (17)
Runtime
1h 53m
Genres
Comedy, Music, Family
Director
Melvin Frank

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: Li'l Abner
  • Awards: 0 · Nominations: 1

Li'l Abner is a 1959 musical comedy film based on the comic strip of the same name created by Al Capp and the successful Broadway musical of the same name that opened in 1956. The film was produced by Norman Panama and directed by Melvin Frank. It was the second film to be based on the comic strip, the first being RKO's 1940 film, Li'l Abner.

Production

Almost every major character in the movie was portrayed by the same performer who appeared in the role on Broadway. Significant exceptions are Daisy Mae (played by Edie Adams on Broadway), Appassionata von Climax (played on stage by Tina Louise) and Mammy Yokum (played on stage by Charlotte Rae). Jerry Lewis appears in a brief cameo as Itchy McRabbit.

Several songs, with music by Gene De Paul and lyrics by Johnny Mercer, were adapted directly from the Broadway production, but the original portions of the motion picture score were written and conducted by Nelson Riddle and Joseph J. Lilley, which earned them an Oscar nomination for Best Score in 1960 and earned Riddle a Grammy nomination for Best Soundtrack Album.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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