1h 10min | Comedy, Musical | 23 November 1935
Director: Benjamin Stoloff
Stars: Hugh Herbert, Helen Broderick, Roger Pryor, Eric Blore.
Sam White ... staging, musical numbers
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0027115/
Watched today, more than a decade out of sequence, because I've been doing my final research on the credits of the Condos Brothers, and I found a claim that Nick danced here. He gets no screen credit, but...
Should be in the Tap! Appendix for Nick Condos, ch 20. He has a lengthy routine dancing on empty band chairs and piano. Kudos to the book What the Eye Hears by Brian Seibert to know about this, and to me for having bought it already (no idea why). Two other books on Tap that have filmographies missed this. This one just mentioned it in the text.
This really is a musical comedy. And your opportunity to see/hear Johnny Mercer, the lyricist, sing. Don't quit your day job Johnny. Also on hand, Willie Best. Amazing that I can recognize him from the back, without knowing he'd be there.
Songs performed (22 chapters, no menu):
- ch3. I Saw Her at Eight O'Clock, sung by Johnny Mercer and then by Evelyn Poe.
- ch8. Santa Claus Came in the Spring, sung by RP
- ch12. Eeney-Meeney-Miney-Mo, Sung by Evelyn Poe, Johnny Mercer; intercut with a sad song, familiar, but not sure what it was.
- ch17. If You Were Mine, sung by RP
- ch18-20. Meet Miss America, sung by Joy Hodges, The Original California Collegians, various tableau posers; danced by Nick Condos including some 5-tap wings. His first American film, according to the book.
RP is a singer, but has the face of a tax accountant.
Having HB and EB here in '35 makes me feel like Fred & Ginger should be coming through the door. But they don't.
RKO, dir. Stoloff, 6
