Just Off Broadway

Just Off Broadway was a Desilu Studios 30 minute television pilot starring Rose Marie, Peggy Ryan and Ray McDonald. Joe Besser and Antic Melkior have a small cameo rolls as Big Joe & Little Joe. It's a fun little three camera 35mm film set up much like "I Love Lucy" In which Rose Marie and Peggy Ryan play sisters who rent a flat off Broadway. Rose Marie plays a singing stand up comic and Peggy plays a dancer. Up arriving in their new place, unbeknownst to them the place was supposed to be vacated the day before, but the other tenant played by Ray McDonald still lives there! It's funny as Ray keeps walking across the set from the bathroom to the bedroom, as the two gals start moving in their stuff, and not bumping into each other until that fateful moment when they all discover each other! Turns out Ray plays a song plugger and is delighted to find out that the woman about to kick him out is Rose Mare! Ray and Peggy hit it off when they discover that they are both dancers trying to make it on Broadway! The do a dance routine in the living room, and decide then and there that they would make a great dance team! Rose Marie sings a number, Ray & Peggy dance a couple of times.This would have been a fun series but it never made it on the small screen! I gave my 16mm print to the UCLA Film and Television Archives many years ago, and it's worth seeing if you can! Peggy and Ray were married in 1952 and divorced in 1958, Ray tragically passed away in 1959 choking to death on food! Ray and Peggy were a great dance team! They danced together in "Shamrock Hill" 1949, and that was a excellent little picture as well! Just Off Broadway was filmed before a live audience in black and white 35mm motion picture film with the same production values as all of Desilu's Productions. Top Notch shall we say! Ray & Peggy were both outstanding dancers, they make all of the "stars" on Dancing With The Stars look like stupid idiots!