1h 9min | Musical | 11 January 1944
Director: Wallace Fox (as Wallace W. Fox)
Stars: Frances Langford, Edward Norris, Iris Adrian
Watched on AmazonPrime, also on a megapack; mediocre print.
She's from Kansas City, which ain't "the country". Clearly this synopsis was written by one of those metropolitan coastal people. Oh, wait, I live on a coast.
I like FL's singing (she's alto or lower), but never noticed any acting from her. This film doesn't break that streak, even though she's the star.
The best moment of the film, which came back to me almost 2 days later, was at ~27:45, when Lorraine Krueger, one of the roommates (a young blonde woman), did a tap dance impersonating "our greatest colored tap dancer(s?)". And sure enough, she does a recognizable Bill Robinson. I'm not sure if she does more than his style, because I couldn't understand if she said dancers (plural), but after a cutaway to plot nonsense, she did some leg moves that I don't recognize as BR. She had a short career (22 credits, '37-'46), and I made note of her in her first film, New Faces of '37, even keeping a link to her filmography so I could pull out her 10 musicals. I haven't noticed her again until now, but I've only seen 2 films in this quest, and she wasn't featured. She has only a few films left; among the music/als: 1 owned, 1 online. (I just submitted the attached screenshot to this title on IMDb.)
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| Lorraine Krueger in Career Girl ('44) |
The plot is backstage struggle plan C, where the unknown is roaming around trying to land a part. (Plan A would be a show struggling to find a backer. Plan B would be a show that suddenly had to replace the star with a newbie.) The twist: she has a rich beau back home, but he's dull and controlling while she's ambitious to share her talent.
When she's agreed to give up and go home to marry Mr. Dull, her house mates form a corporation to support her financially and promote her with their jobs (fashion, newspaper, etc.).
When that doesn't work, by luck they have a good script in hand, and we switch to Plan A. Then on the eve of opening night, in rides Mr. Dull to buy the production and shut it down. I forget how they overturn him, but the last scene is FL singing, maybe only in dress rehearsal (they couldn't afford stock footage of an audience?)
If they gave me any dancing to enjoy, I missed it (and there's no DD in the credits, so probably didn't happen.) Whoops, read an IMDb review by ptb-8, who made me go back and re-view the last few minutes of the film, confirming and enjoying this:
Here in CAREER GIRL the final clumsy dance number is only worth seeing for the hilarious costume design: halter tops which are OK but.... white short pants with a black maple leaf patch on the crotch which makes the chorus girls look as though they are nude and are sporting the biggest bush of lower body pubic hair you have ever seen in a step line of high kicking girls. Yippee! Hilarious. Otherwise, a dirge.Somehow s/he left out the pairs ensemble was all-women in pairs, with one dressed in ruffled dresses, and one in pants and boy-ruffled shirts (they're singing about the rumba), but all with the same 2" heels and each had longish hair. Is this a nod to the war, when the male chorus had been drafted? Yet we have Mr. Dull and the B'way guy who look eligible for service.
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| from Roxie Hart ('42) |
Today, when I feel like I've become more tolerant of bad musicals, I want to downgrade this. About the only fun I had here was when Iris Adrian, whose name rings no bells, but whose voice immediately brings her face to mind, is introduced to the film by her voice from another room. I felt that was a deliberate wink to the audience; she's made about 50 films by now, with 120 total. I'll be generous and just add a minus.
Jack Schwarz Productions, distr. PRC, dir. Fox; 6-
Jack Schwarz Productions, distr. PRC, dir. Fox; 6-
