This Broadway revue is about two love affairs. The romance between the comedienne Joan Mason and Jack Evans of Boston is easily disturbed by Jack's cynical sister, Clara Belle Evans, who is...1h 35min | Comedy, Music | 10 October 1945
Director: Felix E. Feist
Stars: Joan Davis, Jack Haley, Phillip Terry, Gene Krupa & orch, Ethel Smith (organist), Margaret Hamilton, Jane Greer.
Ernst Matray ... choreographer (as Ernest Matray)
In the Tap! Appendix for Beverly Wills, the child playing young JD. I would love to know how they achieved the endless line of dancers deep into our field of vision in the Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries number, introduced by BW.
That number occurs early in the film, and I don't remember anything else begin worthwhile about the movie. I don't understand the allure of JD, who is not only top billed, but occupies a lot of screen time. She headed many Columbia musicals (unavailable on home video), often paired with Jinx Falkenburg (I couldn't pick her out of a photo array, but she had a small part playing herself in Cover Girl ('44)). JD is one of those women who were deemed odd-looking, and therefore had to be funny. But she's really only odd-looking when she makes silly faces; otherwise I'd call her plain, not ugly. Her comedy is largely physical. If you teamed her up with Martha Raye, Cass Daley and Nancy Walker, she would be the pretty one (and maybe the tall one) of these Four Stoogettes, and they all tended toward the same sort of man-chasing slapstick comedy.
That number occurs early in the film, and I don't remember anything else begin worthwhile about the movie. I don't understand the allure of JD, who is not only top billed, but occupies a lot of screen time. She headed many Columbia musicals (unavailable on home video), often paired with Jinx Falkenburg (I couldn't pick her out of a photo array, but she had a small part playing herself in Cover Girl ('44)). JD is one of those women who were deemed odd-looking, and therefore had to be funny. But she's really only odd-looking when she makes silly faces; otherwise I'd call her plain, not ugly. Her comedy is largely physical. If you teamed her up with Martha Raye, Cass Daley and Nancy Walker, she would be the pretty one (and maybe the tall one) of these Four Stoogettes, and they all tended toward the same sort of man-chasing slapstick comedy.
I'm tempted to give this a 5, but it's not quite that bad. We get Ethel Smith tickles her Hammond Organ, and some Gene Krupa numbers, including the finale where chorus girls almost dance while he plays the big timpani drums. (The film is a bit odd, you see.)
RKO, dir. Feist; 6-
