1h 45min | Comedy, Musical | 17 February 1944
Director: Elliott Nugent
Stars: Danny Kaye, Dana Andrews, Dinah Shore.
Daniel Dare ... dances directed by (as Danny Dare) / dances staged by (as Danny Dare)
bootleg, pristine copy
I have a tough time understanding why this is called a remake of Whoopee! ('30). Both are made by the Goldwyn studio, and both have writer credit Owen Davis ... (based upon the play "The Nervous Wreck" by). But aside from being about a hypochondriac, I don't see much similarity.
In '30, we have a female character betrothed to one man and in love with another, forbidden because he's part-Indian, and she uses the hypochondriac (Eddie Cantor) to get out of the situation. In '44, we have the hypochondriac (DK) in love with one girl, who falls for his friend (DA), and poor DS has a yen for DK, but he doesn't reciprocate. In '30 we're on a dude ranch, in '44 we're on a troop transport ship.
We get 3 songs written by DK's wife (since '40) Sylvia Fine, all of the complicated sometimes nonsense lyrics you'd expect of him. DS joins him for one of those songs, echoing some of his "improvised" vocalizations, and has 2 songs of her own. The song shared by DK & DS (ch22) also provides a dance ensemble in very colorful costumes (much of the film is army drab; this is a dream sequence) and some bizarre imagery (women on pedestal/lattice things). (To close out the film, they literally repeat the actual footage of the last few seconds of this production number.)
I spotted Virginia Mayo a couple of times. She's credited as a nurse, but she was just a Goldwyn Girl to me; her 3rd film credit. Also spotted twice: Margaret Dumont, who does have lines at one point, and just a giggle in the dream sequence.
Shruggable comedy, poor use of Technicolor (except the dream sequence).
Goldwyn, distr. RKO, dir. Nugent; 6
