1h 7min | Drama, Musical | 12 February 1944
Director: Wallace Fox (as Wallace W. Fox)
Stars: Mary Beth Hughes, Edward Norris, Ted North
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037067/
watched online, blurry blurry print.
After watching the film, looked up the production company. They made about 2 dozen films, '42-'45, titles sound mostly like westerns and he-man stuff.
The synopsis above is about right. I don't remember that she was famous, but she definitely had a Tom, Dick and Harry to choose from. And that's actually a film antecedent to this; Ginger Rogers starred, released '41. That synopsis says:
Working girl Janie is proposed to by a conservative car salesman, a bohemian auto mechanic, and a millionaire playboy and must make a choice.
So here it's an older rich guy who sponsors her music education, a younger rich guy (or jewel thief?) who wants to help her career too, and a bohemian music teacher/composer who she wants to be more ambitious in his pursuits, but he gives her his best song.
And this being a PRC film, I know no one onscreen except Luis Alberni who's around a tiny bit as her voice coach (that's him in the poster). Although I should, because MBH was one of the Orchestra Wives ('42).
She can sing ok (or her voice double can, there is no Soundtracks page for this), but I don't care. No one has any charisma; or maybe it's just too fuzzy to see them. At a few points I thought "this is like watching a race film from 5+ years ago" (without the good musical performances): poor acting/directing/writing/sets/costumes/sound. To be honest, I didn't look closely enough to decide if the sets/costumes were bad. I'm giving it a 4 to wave myself off: nose up, don't land here. (Hmm. One positive: I don't remember them mentioning the war.)
Indie, distr. PRC, dir. Fox; 4
