1h 26min | Animation, Comedy, Musical | 4 September 1948 | Color
Director: David Butler
Stars: Dennis Morgan, Jack Carson, Dorothy Malone, Penny Edwards.
LeRoy Prinz ... choreographer
This should not have Animation as a genre; that requires 75% of the film being animated. We have a 2min cartoon dream sequence with a Bugs Bunny cameo.
10th of 11 films pairing Dennis Morgan & JC.
6 songs performed per Soundtracks; some are sung multiple times.
It took me several iterations to finish the film. That can be caused by my sleepiness, boredom with the film, or a combination. This did not grab my attention. The familiar song was so because of the animation sequence, which I've watched on a Looney Tunes Golden Collection. OK, now I've seen it in context. I hope I paid a low price for the disc.
JC demonstrates that he really can sing; maybe he was dubbed and it's not documented in the Soundtracks. He doesn't look good doing it here: strange lip movements, perhaps over-acting the lip-sync?
The plot is a snore: they run out of gas in the middle of the desert, walk to a nearby resort, but on the way they hitchhike a bit and the ride providers decide to steal their car. Turns out they're robbers, and want an alternate getaway car. So when they pull their heist (and they are roughly the same build as DM & JC), the abandoned car with an empty strongbox points to DM & JC as the bandits. So they need to get out of jail to find the real robbers. (I didn't absorb the moment when they determined who the robbers were.) Despite the fact that the robbers shot a civilian at the robbery (and he's down flat, not winged), this is all played for laughs. The sheriff, played by a young Forrest Tucker, is not very smart about how to house prisoners.
Before being arrested, they perform at the resort, and sing love songs to the 2 women. The non-animated highlight of the film is Penny Edwards dancing. She can do some high kicks well, and her skirt was well-designed for the twirling she does. (Recall that I liked her dance in Feudin', Fussin' and A-Fightin' (1948), too.) But even her musical number was designed for cheap laughs: the crew member holding the hose (to provide rain outside the window on the stage set) was visible above the set wall, and calling attention to himself. And this was a DMorgan number, not JC.
Teetering between 5+, 6-.
I think I'll take a jog back to '38 and watch the antecedent Cowboy from Brooklyn.
Warner, dir. Butler; 6-
