1h 41min | Comedy, Drama, Musical, Romance | 17 August 1942
Director: W.S. Van Dyke (as Maj. W.S. Van Dyke II)
Stars: Jeanette MacDonald, Robert Young, Ethel Waters.
Sammy Lee ... dance director
In order to understand my prior rating of 6, I did some research. I rated it on 24 Jul 2014 with 4 other films, so this is likely my watching and rating the film immediately after. It was the 5th film rated that day, and none of the others are focused on the War: Conflict (1945; 6), Brother Orchid (1940; 7), The Bride Goes Wild (1948; 5), Cass Timberlane (1947; 5). (I only own 2 of these, likely bought after viewing, this one to be a completist for JM.)
I was keeping a log of books read while doing my WW2 research, which I didn't begin until Sep 2014. So I didn't yet view this from that perspective.
As a musical, it's not great: not enough music. JM sings well, just not enough. Fortunately Ethel Waters gets to sing (she did NOT in Tales of Manhattan earlier this year), and she has THREE such scenes, although only 1 where she solos (~1:14; pre-Casablanca (11'42) Dooley Wilson watches admiringly, and reprises the song with her; their scene lasts until ~1:20, and it's completely excisable). I don't see enough dancing to require a dance director (I even ffwd'd through the whole thing, and only saw some acrobatics at the carnival).
But as a comedic war/spy thriller, this is pretty good. And merge the 2 together, and it adds to 7. As propaganda, it's also good: the woman Nazi gives a chilling explanation of why she's willing to give her life for the "cause," and immediately hurls racial condemnations at the Arab who is providing the remote bomber plane technology to them.
The synopsis above is bad. RY's drawing JM into his investigation (he's a reporter, not a government agent) is only accidental in the sense that she is somewhat randomly identified as an enemy agent, and the conVoy of troups (as well as the Suez canal) was the target of the remote-controlled bomb-laden planes.
MGM, dir. Van Dyke; 7+
