(91 min) Released 1938-02-04
Director: Edwin L. Marin
Stars: Allan Jones, Judy Garland, Fanny Brice, Billie Burke, Reginald Gardiner, Reginald Owen
Seymour Felix ... stager: "Quainty, Dainty Me"
Val Raset ... dance director (uncredited)
We get plenty of singing (no big surprise, given this title), and some showgirls and guys moving around, but not much that would justify 2 dance directors. Quainty, Dainty Me is used twice: once while FB is showing what she can do (in a fitted empire gown and and decorated set), and reprised briefly in the showgirl-populated finale. Credits also list a dance-double for FB. I don't see anything where she was doubled, nor that would have been staged by Felix (he's done big stuff before); I wonder if a more elaborate number was cut.
We see some tap-dancing chorines in JG's number Ever Since the World Began / Shall I Sing a Melody?, but we spend most of the dancing time off-stage with the plot.
As you can see by the poster above, JG (b. '22) is again dressed as a child. We see a little cleavage in the finale, while she's got crinolines deliberately showing, outer skirt only coming to her knee. Billie Burke (b. 1884, so ~38 when JG was born), playing her mother, actually calls her an ugly duckling twice. You can imagine what was said off-screen; no wonder JG had issues.
We get a lot of Fanny Brice footage, which is good. In addition to her Quainty number, she does a Baby Snooks routine with JG (playing a boy). More important: she's in the whole film as the family maid, who is not servile, but not rude either. I wonder if she enjoyed live theatre more, or if the studios just chose not to use her (maybe too costly relative to the film actors who could play similar roles), but she only has 7 movie credits. This is her penultimate, the last coming in '45 (Ziegfeld Follies, appropriately.)
I adore Allan Jones: his face, physique, smile, acting and especially his singing. He has a prominent role here (first billed), and plays it well.
The plot is ok, but if JG were younger, the narcissistic negligent parents would be even more distressing. The fact that AJ goes from singing solo in a restaurant to mounting a large stage show with dozens in the cast is suspicious. Gotta mention that he managed to integrate Fanny Brice into the show hours before opening night, but when you can do an audition in a fitted costume with no notice, anything goes.
BTW, with 2 of the Reginald's together, I wondered if Reginald Denny ever appeared with them. IMDb just changed that search, so I'm suspicious of the results, but they would indicate that no, never the 3 together.
MGM, dir. Marin; 6+
