1h 25min | Comedy, Music | 1 August 1949 | Color
Director: David Butler
Stars: Doris Day, Dennis Morgan, Jack Carson, Bill Goodwin, cameos galore.
Herschel Daugherty ... dialogue director
LeRoy Prinz ... musical number staged and directed by
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041515/
6 songs sung by one or more of the leads per the Soundtracks, plus instrumentals/score or unidentified quartet.
The emphasis is much more on comedy than music. The premise is that Warner has a film no one will direct because its costar is JC (w/DM); only JC will direct it. Which means no actress will costar in it. So the hunt is on for a female lead. DD works in the WB commissary to break into films, gets to JC and convinces him (or did she first convince DM?) to take a chance on her. But the male duo think the producer (BG) will only accept someone he discovers. So they put her in front of him everywhere: elevator operator, waitress, cabbie, oculist's assistant. All she does is grin and flutter her eyelashes in these invisible occupations (she doesn't sing!); he thinks he's going nuts.
Since the female lead in the planned film is supposed to be French, they give DD new makeup/wig/costumes, and a press release that spreads like wildfire. I've covered more than half the plot, but I'll stop here. What happens next is not the standard ending for an Iwannabeinpictures script.
The dance director got to stage an Apache skit where DD sang (in a dream); it was not at all a spoof of Slaughter on Tenth Avenue as someone put in the Connections.
Because the majority of the film takes place on the Warner lot, we get a bunch of cameos: Gary Cooper, Edward G. Robinson, Patricia Neal, Eleanor Powell, Joan Crawford, Danny Kaye, Ronald Reagan, Jane Wyman with little daughter Maureen (but not with RR), various directors. It's kinda cute, as is the whole frenetic film.
Warner, dir. Butler; 6+
