(69 min) Released 1936-12-14
Director: Aubrey Scotto
Stars: Phil Regan, Evelyn Venable, Jed Prouty
Genres: Musical | Comedy
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0027718/
Watched online. Found on Amazon Prime and on YouTube. The print is fuzzy and dark.
Watched out of sequence; falls between (Born to Dance, then) With Love and Kisses and Stowaway.
Phil Regan (1906–1996) has 23 film credits ('33-'46), including 4 already blogged here. Evelyn Venable (1913–1993) has 24 movie credits ('33-'43), including The Little Colonel ('35) as mother to ST and Yankee stepdaughter to former Confederate Lionel Barrymore.
I'm sensing a trend for the Poverty Row and indie productions: lack of full documentation on the Soundtracks page. Here we have 3 songs and no singers.
The only justification for the genre Musical is Regan singing frequently, sometimes on stage, once to communicate his escape plan. He has a good voice and is handsome and athletic. No idea why he didn't become more prominent. He has at least as much personality as Tony Martin, who had more success. I have no idea why the synopsis describes Venable as a singer here. She didn't sing, and no one said she was a singer.
The film has some entertainment value from the strange plot, with fighting and errant plane flying. The resolution is a bit too quick, especially with regard to Venable's character. But don't seek this out as a musical or as a comedy. It's just a spy | mistaken identity | adventure thriller with some songs and some comic relief. Wow, that could describe a bunch of Alfred Hitchcock films; I can even think of a couple with singing. So you have plenty of better choices out there.
Republic, dir. Scotto; 5+
