Carolina Cannonball – 1955 one-sheet movie poster

Description

This is the one-sheet poster for the movie Carolina Cannonball. It measures approximately 26.5 x 46 inches. One-sheets were usually folded several times and mailed to movie theaters around the country. So it has fold creases (and will be mailed folded).
Movie posters look great framed! (See examples in photos above.)
Carolina Cannonball is a musical comedy released by Republic Pictures in 1955. It stars Judy Canova (IMDb rates it a 5.3/10).
Judy and her grandfather run a trolley between a train depot and a ghost town in Nevada, near the California border. Three spies intent of tracking down an atomic missile gone astray arrive. When the trolley breaks down, Judy and her grandfather unwittingly install the engine from the nearby crashed missile.
By the time Judy Canova left the limelight after five decades, she had scored in almost every major area of entertainment there was – vaudeville, nightclubs, recording, Broadway, radio, film and TV.
Born Juliette Canova, her singing mother encouraged all her children to perform. Judy, the youngest of the Canova brood, eventually joined older siblings Anne and Zeke in a singing vaudeville and radio act. They billed themselves as the Three Georgia Crackers in and about Florida. As she got older, Judy hoped to attend the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, but the Depression left her with no option but to try the sibling act in New York. The foursome (which now included brother Pete) found radio work and made their Broadway debut in the revue "Calling All Stars" in 1934.
Judy became a solo singer on Rudy Vallee's radio show, then worked with bandleader Paul Whiteman on his series as a hayseed comedienne. Like another famous Judy (Judy Garland), Judy was the youngest in the act and an inveterate scene-stealer. She sang, she joked, she mugged, she yodeled, and even played guitar. On her own she was showcased in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1936 and went on to star in her own 1939 Broadway show, "Yokel Boy," with siblings Anne and Zeke supporting her.
Capitalizing on her angular figure, rubbery face, almond-shaped eyes and tunnel-wide mouth, Judy made herself up to be purposely homely. Her persona was defined in part by her first husband, Bob Burns. Burns was a nationally known cracker-barrel radio and film personality during the 1930s and 1940s and recognized by his own hillbilly origins as "The Arkansas Traveler" and "The Arkansas Philosopher." The couple were married in 1936 but the marriage lasted only three years. Judy quickly became a crowd favorite as your man-lovin', pigtail-braidin', straw hat-wearin' country bumpkin.
An offer from Warner Bros. led to films. She and siblings Zeke, Anne and Pete first cavorted in a Ruth Etting musical short The Song of Fame (1934), then made their feature film debut courtesy of director Busby Berkeley clowning around with the song "The Lady in Red" in In Caliente (1935). Brother Pete quit the act at this point and Judy began appearing solo in other showy specialty or acting bits in movies. Promoted as a rowdy Ozark version of Martha Raye, Judy signed with the lesser studio, Republic Pictures, in 1940 for some starring vehicles. In the meantime she recorded for the RCA Victor label while putting out about a dozen Hollywood films.
Scatterbrain (1940) was Judy's first leading film role and was backed by a hillbilly-goes-to-Hollywood storyline. Judy's fans loved her as the misfit title role in Sis Hopkins (1941) with her hick-amid-the-wealthy antics to carry it off. She and Slim Summerville teamed up to battle city slickers in Puddin' Head (1941) and Joe E. Brown was a fine, zany partner for her in both Joan of Ozark (1942) and Chatterbox (1943). Some war-era fun was to be had by Judy, Jerry Colonna and Ann Miller in True to the Army (1942) and one of Judy's better showcases would come with Sleepytime Gal (1942).
In 1943, Judy began her own radio program, "The Judy Canova Show," which ran for 12 years – first on CBS and later on NBC. Playing pretty much herself, she was backed by a fine array of radio talent including vocal icon Mel Blanc, Ruby Dandridge (Dorothy's mother), Joseph Kearns (Mr. Wilson of TV's Dennis the Menace), Gale Gordon (Mr. Mooney of "The Lucy Show"), Sheldon Leonard and Hans Conried (both from "The Danny Thomas Show"). Dubbed "The Ozark Nightingale," Judy's pigtails-and-calico fad was huge on WWII-era college campuses across the country. A patriotic Judy would typically close her radio show with the song "Goodnight, Soldier" while selling U.S. War Bonds. She also made frequent appearances on other popular radio programs of the day, including Bud Abbott and Lou Costello and Fred Allen's shows.
She slowed her film schedule in 1946 to focus on her radio show and raising her children (daughters Julieta Canova England and Diana Canova. She starred in Carolina Cannonball (1955) and Lay That Rifle Down (1955). Her radio program ended in 1955. She formed her own TV production Company, Caravan, Inc. in 1957.
Her daughter, Diana Canova, became an actor in her own right and popular ensemble member of the popular sitcom Soap (1977). In 1983, Judy died from cancer. She was honored with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to both film and radio.