Parting company with her on-stage partner Professor Orco partly due to the job being potentially hazardous to her health, streetwise but kind-hearted vaudeville performer Maisie Ravier, in ...
1h 26min | Comedy, Romance | June 1942
Director: Roy Del Ruth
Stars: Ann Sothern, Red Skelton, Leo Gorcey.
Daniel Dare ... dance director
Truly not a musical, although other films have been tagged as such with about the same music content.
I find it bizarre that none of the Maisie movies are Musicals, especially since her profession is singer/showgirl (although she has various jobs along the way.) But given this is in the Tap! Appendix for uncredited white and black tap dancers, I'll watch this now. Also on AFI's list of 500 films nominated for Top 100 Funniest, and previously rated 7 by me (only one other of the ten Maisie films also got a 7).
The Tap! author was optimistic about the tapping content here. In the opening scene, while Maisie is on the phone, we see a black soloist at a distance, on stage tapping and doing the splits in formal wear; but we spend more time off the dancer than on, and hear only the music. In the final scene, Maisie fronts some chorus girls, but they are strutting/wiggling, not really tapping.
This is entertaining enough, but I don't know why it gets the AFI nom, nor why I gave this a 7. Red Skelton is charming in his usual sweet way. Maisie is bravely self-reliant and warm-hearted; a watchable character who deserved her 10-film series. I won't change my rating, but would only give it a 6+ today.
MGM, dir. Del Ruth; 7-
