1h 26min | Drama, Musical, Romance | 5 May 1939
Director: Gregory Ratoff
Stars: Tyrone Power, Alice Faye, Al Jolson.
Seymour Felix ... dances staged by
I like the top billed actors, and they fulfill their roles well here. AF and AJ each sing and dance. TP doesn't do scoundrel quite so well as Omar Sharif, and AF isn't totally credible as a woman who'd put up with her husband's dirty dealings. I suppose some beauties might stick with a bad boy, but it seems less plausible. However, it didn't distract me much, because so much time is spent on musical numbers, and so little on the bad things TP did. Plus, he seems to WANT to do right by HER, even if he steals others blind. AF does NOT do an impression of Fanny Brice.
In the featurette, they talk about AJ in blackface, and what a problem that is, but how accepted it was at the time. I can imagine a lot of people not thinking about it then because it was common. I understand the offensiveness. I thoroughly dislike Fred Astaire's "tribute" to Bojangles in Top Hat ('35) because he displays some subservient (my interpretation) body language, and the costume was too ridiculous. As said by other commentators on other dvds, Jolson doesn't act subservient when he's in blackface. Supposedly he did it in his live act because it emphasized the mouth, eyes and hands from a distance. He behaves the same when he sings the same songs without it. (One of the reasons that I like his film The Singing Kid ('36) is that he plays off and with Cab Calloway. However, I am distracted when Wini Shaw gets shiny black skin (fortunately, no white lips).)
The best musical number here is probably the title song (Ch 18), where, among other things (including an adagio pair), AF and some chorus boys do a magic act of producing lit cigarettes over and over and over while dancing a bit. If you look for it, you can see her palming them, and taking the next one out of her belt sometimes, but it's still fascinating. Plus we get to see her dance again. She's a good dancer, and doesn't do enough in her movies. (This is her 15th film watched so far, at least 9 to go. And no, that's not everything of hers. I didn't watch 4 of her films from 1934. I don't have a way of reliably tabulating films where she danced.)
On the IMDb trivia page:
This film closely resembles the life of entertainer Fanny Brice, and Alice Faye even sings Brice's signature song, "My Man" in the film. According to Biography: Alice Faye: The Star Next Door (1996), Brice sued 20th Century Fox for $750,000. The studio benefited from the publicity generated by the lawsuit - the film became the highest grossing musical of 1939 - and eventually settled out of court with Brice for an undisclosed amount. It has also been alleged that Power's character resembles Nicky Arnstein.
By scanning the list, I'd say 1939 is not a banner year for musicals (although revenue at the time might be another story), so the highest grossing of the year doesn't impress me. The Wizard of Oz was released in August. '39 was a banner year for films, maybe the best single year. Look at the poster roster Google provides, and just keep scrolling, Huh, here's a site that claims to have box office numbers for '39. Wizard of Oz ($9.8M, #2) and Babes in Arms ($9.2M, #6) came in ahead of Rose ($6M, #20). Gone With the Wind? $58M, #1.
Here's a nice micro film festival: watch a movie with Fannie Brice (either The Great Ziegfeld ('36) or Everybody Sing ('38), or possibly Ziegfeld Follies ('45)), and this film, and then Funny Girl ('68). Or watch all 3 of FB's, and add Funny Lady ('75).
Fox, dir. Ratoff; 7-
