1h 15min | Comedy, Music | 5 June 1941
Director: Sidney Salkow
Stars: Rudy Vallee, Ann Miller, Rosemary Lane, Allen Jenkins.
LeRoy Prinz ... choreographer
So instead of comedy coming from characters (Eric Blore or EE Horton in a F&G movie), we'e regressing to vaudeville-style comedy ACTS interspersed within the story? Here the 3 Stooges, and they are barely integrated into the story as a wannabe act that finally inserts itself in a last moment gap within a show. Curly can mug adorably, but the violence among them makes me wince.
Allen Jenkins (1900-74) has 111 talking feature film credits (1931-74), 26 musicals, this is the 9th I've watched, and this is the first time I noticed him dancing - with Ann Miller no less. Now, he sits out her fast taps, but he IS tapping, and ball-rooming, and not goofing around about it. It's brief, but he's pretty good. His mini-bio says his parents were musical comedy performers.
In the Tap! Appendix for Ann Miller (b, 1923), this made me double-check whether I'd put her in my list of Dancers yet, and I had for New Faces of 1937. She made 10 films in between, 6 were musicals, and only 1 was viewable (Too Many Girls ('40)). Her numbers make me put this on the Worthwhile Dancing list.
Otherwise, this film is shruggable, and reinforces my dislike of Rudy Vallee's singing.
Otherwise, this film is shruggable, and reinforces my dislike of Rudy Vallee's singing.
Columbia, dir. Salkow, 6
