1h 31min | Comedy, Musical | 11 April 1941 | Color
Director: Irving Cummings
Stars: Alice Faye, Don Ameche, Carmen Miranda, S.Z. Sakall.
Hermes Pan ... dance staged by
Angela Blue ... assistant choreographer (uncredited)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034273/
It's impossible to know how I might feel about this if I hadn't seen it's very close antecedent (blog link for) Folies Bergère de Paris (1935), 7. The translation is from Paris to Rio, and from Maurice Chevalier to DA, Merle Oberon to AF, Ann Sothern to CM and Eric Blore to Cuddles Sakall.
Because the male lead is playing 2 roles (the aristocrat and the show-biz impersonator), this is a primary ingredient for the film. I like DA in most things, and I might have praised him here, but DA is no Maurice Chevalier. MC oozes charm where DA is pleasant. MC expresses distress a little better than stalwart DA.
I like DA's singing, but at one point early in the film, when we'd had a number from CM, and DA started singing a third song, I did a double-take, asked "again?" and wondered when AF would sing (she does).
Color is still a novelty at this point, and they made excellent use of it with CM's costumes, the sets, and especially the women's multi-colored skirts in the opening number Chica Chica Boom Chic. However, I tend to agree with those who say color is a distraction, even in a farce. At one point AF wears a gold lame gown that drew my attention, when I should have been focused on her. Speaking of distracting costumes, in Ch 19 AF wears a fur-trimmed peignoir that looks identical to something Betty Grable wore in an earlier film (probably Down Argentine Way ('40), except I remember hers being silver/blue, and this is beige/tan.)
Ann Sothern was pretty loud and obnoxious as the impersonator's girlfriend in '35, but CM does it in rapid Portuguese and on very high platform shoes with huge fruity turbans on her head. (DA replies in English so we can understand.) Both versions are annoying.
AF brings more warmth, depth and music to her role than did Merle Oberon, but Oberon makes a more convincing aristocrat who lives a separate life from her husband.
Except for the opening number, all musical numbers are singing only, except for some social dancing. Even the finale, a patchwork of reprises, has no choreography. And in the opening number, I felt some of the men in the foreground looked under-rehearsed. (The women were just a multi-colored blur. Again, distracting.)
I think I cannot recommend this film, even though I mostly like it. And I still don't know how much my appreciation of Chevalier in '35 is pulling my opinion down.
Fox, dir. Cummings; 6+
