1h 47min | Comedy, Music, Romance | June 1948
Directors: Leslie Fenton, King Vidor, John Huston, George Stevens
Stars: see below
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040664/
Intro segment: Paulette Goddard, Burgess Meredith.
Band audition segment: James Stewart, Henry Fonda, Harry James, Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer, Eduardo Ciannelli, Dorothy Ford.
Film actress segment: Dorothy Lamour, Victor Moore, Eilene Janssen.
Kid with goldmine segment: Fred MacMurray, William Demarest, Hugh Herbert. Dir. Fenton.
Deleted sequence (watched here): Charles Laughton, Henry Hull, John Qualen.
I find it bizarre that the Laughton segment is what was cut; it's by far the best of the 4. But the movie was heavily male-oriented without the DL segment, which was created to replace it. Apparently they wanted a secular film, and CL played a preacher who experiences a miracle.
It's very uneven stuff. Don't know who directed what, except the alternate title credits on the dvd tell us which segment Fenton helmed. I wouldn't blame the direction necessarily. The stories with DL and FM as leads just weren't very interesting, and both included a domineering child.
The appeal of this film is the pairing of Fonda/Stewart. They were friends in real life (I think they roomed together in early days), and worked together too seldom (4 films). Fonda (b. 1905) was really good at comedy, and didn't do enough of them in total, and especially not when he was young (20 of 93 films; this is the 10th one, the next is in '55). The other one that really shows his comedic talent is The Lady Eve ('41).
I'll stick with my prior 6. Especially since I cannot count the CL segment as part of this film.
Benedict Bogeaus Prod., distr. UA, dir. Fenton, Vidor, Huston, Stevens; 6
