1h 31min | Drama, Music | 4 April 1946
Director: Norman Taurog
Stars: William Powell, Esther Williams, Angela Lansbury, James Gleason.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038615/
Only 2 songs in the Soundtracks, both sung by Angela Lansbury (dubbed). I counted 4 songs sung; didn't try to correlate with the 2 titles, but could easily have been repeats of them. I do NOT count this as a musical, but won't fight the tag.
This was too sentimental and pseudo-religious for me. To get his hangers-on off his neck, WP tells them the tale of the hoodlum saint, and sets up an event to make them believe. Later, when he's down on his luck (market crash wipes him out), JG (one of the hangers) convinces him to try asking that saint for help. We don't get angelic choruses, but that group of hangers-on is so impressed with WP turning to prayer, they reform back into believers.
EW doesn't get wet. She's the romantic interest for WP, who's not interested in romance when she is. Her acting is serviceable, but the character she plays is one-dimensional, as is AL, the hard-bitten chanteuse, also romancing WP.
I disliked WP's character enough that I frowned at the "happy" ending. Disliked the film enough to look whether this was a Dory Schary film, but he's over at RKO in '46, doesn't re-join MGM as head of production until '48.
MGM, dir. Taurog; 5
