Let Yourself Go ... To Old Hollywood

In The Good Old Summertime (1949)

From my Facebook archives, September 14, 2015:

It had been a few months since we had seen a new (for us) Judy Garland film. The drought finally ended a couple weeks back with In The Good Old Summertime. Our expectations were fulfilled, as it was a very enjoyable movie with good music and performances.

It doesn't have any big production numbers, but Judy singing is quite a production by itself. And it does have one of my all-time favorite of Judy's performances in her song-and-dance to "I Don't Care," which I had seen clips of earlier and was eagerly anticipating.

In The Good Old Summertime is a 1949 Technicolor MGM musical re-make of the 1940 non-musical Ernst Lubitsch comedy The Shop Around The Corner. Judy and Van Johnson star, taking the roles of Margaret Sullivan and James Stewart. The setting has been moved to a music store in turn-of-the-century Chicago. But many of the characters, sets, and scenes are eerily reminiscent of the earlier film. It's been 2-3 years since we watched The Shop Around The Corner but at times Van Johnson seemed to me to morph into Jimmy Stewart. This is not a bad thing; the Lubitsch version was excellent.

Alas, Judy would only complete one more film at MGM (Summer Stock with Gene Kelly) before her troubles led to her departure from the studio where she had worked since she was 13. and her long road of tremendous ups-and-downs over the remaining twenty years of her life.

Easy to Wed (1946)

From my Facebook archives, September 2, 2015:

Easy To Wed is a 1946 Technicolor musical comedy from MGM--a remake of the classic 1936 non-Technicolor non-musical comedy Libeled Lady.

Lucille Ball, perhaps predictably given her later career, is the best thing about this fun, but not classic, movie. The movie studios didn't realize what they had with Lucy and this was apparently one of the best roles she got in her movie career. Soon she abandoned films and moved into early television and took the world by storm.

The musical numbers are not numerous, which is fine since they are also not noteworthy--except for one by organist Ethel Smith, who appears out of nowhere and puts on a very entertaining show near the end.

Esther Williams is charming but interestingly only does a little casual swimming. Don't expect any big watery production numbers here.

Lillian Russell (1940)

From my Facebook archives, July 19, 2015:

Lillian Russell. 20th Century Fox, 1940. A few weeks back we finally got around to seeing another of Alice Faye's musicals (after seeing the excellent Alexander's Ragtime Band a few months ago).

The film Lillian Russell s a bio-pic of a superstar actress of the turn of the last century. Alas we don't get a good sense of Russell as a performer in this film. Alice Faye does sing in elaborate 1890s outfits, but apparently the actual Lillian Russell did a lot more than sing. The story is also extremely fictionalized so you don't get a good sense of Russell as a person either. After reading about her, I discovered that her actual story was far more interesting than the screenplay of this film.

What is interesting in the movie is seeing the nostalgia for the late 1800s, a period which so many then alive remembered very well, and seeing the negative portrayal of Russell's suffragette-activist mother. Also, there are a couple good songs. My favorite is one Russell's composer-husband, played by Don Ameche (who is underutilized in this film), sings to Alice Faye, "Blue Lovebird." While many of the songs are from the appropriate era, that was a new song written for the movie.

Henry Fonda is also in the film and plays an important, but boring, character. Edward Arnold and Warren William have smaller roles and are far more fun to watch.

The Fabulous Dorseys (1947)

From my Facebook archives, May 17, 2015:

How about a bio-pic where the subjects play their own characters, acting out a broadly accurate, yet fictionalized version of their careers? That's The Fabulous Dorseys, a United Artists picture from 1947.

So don't watch this for the acting quality, but do watch for some excellent music from the swing era -- which I can't get enough of lately.

Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey perform, of course, but also you can see Art Tatum, Charlie Barnet, Helen O'Connell and others.

Interestingly, Frank Sinatra spent a couple of his early years singing with Tommy Dorsey's band but he is nowhere to be seen or heard from in this film. 

On The Town (1948)

From my Facebook archives, May 17, 2015:

 

On the Town. M-G-M, 1949. This musical has in its cast Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Vera-Ellen, Ann Miller, and Betty Garrett. With names like these, and its status as a "classic", I was expecting a better movie.

It was modestly enjoyable. But, looking back at it, the music is forgettable, the dancing is not very interesting, the acting is weak, and the storyline is not compelling.

Most of the numbers are group pieces, so Sinatra's singing and Kelly's dancing are watered down by the weaker singers and dancers in the ensemble. And Ann Miller should have had the lead female role. She is far more charismatic than Vera-Ellen and deserved more screen time.

Some aspects of the film I particularly enjoyed were the color location shots of New York City in 1949, Ann Miller's tap dancing, seeing Betty Garrett in her younger days (after originally knowing her as a recurring character on All in the Family), the characterization of the women as the aggressive, wise ones while the men were naive, the gender-stereotype-reversed scene where taxi driver Betty Garrett is strongly hitting on a reluctant Frank Sinatra.

It seems to be a repeatable pattern that I am disappointed at the legendary Freed unit MGM musicals from the late '40s and early '50s. Many love them and sing their praises loudly, but these movies don't seem to suit my musical film tastes well. Of course Easter Parade is an exception!

 

Private Buckaroo (1942): Helen Forrest and the Andrews Sisters

From my Facebook archives, April 25, 2015:

Discovering Fred Astaire a year-and-half ago has led me to discover several other amazing performers. Ginger Rogers, of course! But also Artie Shaw and his band. And through them, the wonderful singer Helen Forrest.

Trying to learn more about her, I found a clip of a captivating song, "You Made Me Love You", performed by Harry James and his band and sung by Helen. I could go on-and-on about that musical scene. But for now, it's relevant in that it is the opening for the 1942 Universal film "Private Buckaroo" and so inspired us to watch that film last week. It turned out we already owned a copy in an inexpensive set of 50 public domain musicals that we had bought last Christmas.

As wartime propaganda musical comedy extravaganzas, Private Buckaroo beats Stage Door Canteen, which I wrote about recently, hands down. Not only does it have Harry James' excellent big band and Helen Forrest (though not nearly enough of her), but it also features several performances by the Andrews Sisters. Of course, I'd heard some of their songs before and knew they were extremely popular in the '40s. But I'd never actually seen them perform. And it turns out they are very fun to watch, particularly Patty.

So watch this film for the musical performances, which are fortunately plentiful. With the comedy of Shemp Howard and Mary Wickes and Joe E. Lewis thrown in, the silly propaganda plot barely gets in the way at all.

 

Stage Door Canteen (1943)

From my Facebook archives, April 19, 2015:

Continuing to get caught up on films we've seen over the last two weeks...

Stage Door Canteen. United Artists, 1943. This film, made in the middle of World War 2, is pure propaganda and morale boosting entertainment. Dozens of actors and musicians appear in cameos, with some performing more substantial bits. The majority were people I am not familiar with, but fortunately most were identified. The movie was fascinating to watch, but mainly for a couple of the musical performances (Benny Goodman, in particular) and as a cultural study of America at war.

Silk Stockings (1957)

From my Facebook archives, March 30, 2015:

Silk Stockings. MGM, 1957.

This was Fred Astaire's last "classic" Hollywood musical, at the age of 58. He did a number of films after this, but all non-singing and non-dancing, except for one -- 11 years later. His dancing shifted to television.

The dancing here, except for the first group routine, is really superb. Fred is still great, although no longer in his prime. Cyd Charisse is excellent.

Yet I did not warm up to the film. The Soviet stereotypes are overdone. The characters of the three commissars are more tiresome than funny (except for Peter Lorre). Fred's character is a bit of a sleaze. Cyd Charisse's character is flat. The romance isn't believable.

And worst of all was the demeaning attitude towards women, verbalized most egregiously in this lyric that Cyd Charisse sings (dubbed) to Fred while kneeling on the floor in front of him: "A woman to a man is just a woman. But a man to a woman is her life."

So the two romantic duets between Fred and Cyd, while excellent routines, suffer from the context they are put in. That is a critical difference from his earlier films.

The most enjoyable bits were the Cyd-plus-chorus number 'Red Blues' and Fred's very funny 'sock solo' (as he called it) "The Ritz Roll and Rock". Both of these are in the last part of the film so it does end on a strong note.

Three Smart Girls (1936)

From my Facebook archives, March 26, 2015:

Three Smart Girls. Universal, 1936.

Jeanine Basinger's book The Star Machine has led me to check out films by a few once-upon-a-time big, but not well-known today, stars I haven't been familiar with yet. Such as Tyrone Power in Alexander's Ragtime Band and now Deanna Durbin in this movie, her first (at the age of 15).

Durbin is a singing actress like Judy Garland, except with a very different style (more operatic, less jazz) that is generally not to our taste.

In this film, the singing is minimal, and it is mostly a crazy comedy. And it is a very good comedy at that, so it's not hard to see why it was a big hit. The supporting cast is excellent. Alice Brady is a particular favorite of mind thanks to her work in The Gay Divorcee with Fred and Ginger.

Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938)

From my Facebook archives, March 21, 2015:

I've fallen a bit behind in my movie blogging. I have three excellent films to report, all musicals to varying degrees, all from the 1930s.

Alexander's Ragtime Band. 20th Century Fox. 1938.

Alice Faye! How had I never seen one of her films before? That has to change. Don Ameche is also excellent, but he is always one of my favorites. And Tyrone Power is pretty good too.

There are a ton of Irving Berlin songs here (29 reportedly), as it appears to have been the first of a number of Berlin songfests, including the Fred Astaire films Holiday Inn, Blue Skies, and Easter Parade from 5-10 years later. Fortunately these are good songs and the performers are wonderful so it hardly feels like a re-run. Which would be unfair anyway as this movie came first.