1h 40min | Comedy, Romance | 31 December 1953 | Color
Director: George Marshall
Stars: Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Marjie Millar, Pat Crowley, Richard Haydn, Robert Strauss, Sheldon Leonard.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046087/
Watched online, good print.
According to my memory and my blog, 1st M&L film in color. They look good, and the art directors used color well.
3rd M&L release of '53, and they have 30+ Colgate Comedy Hour episodes in '53. Amazing that they appeared to be friendly to each other here. (They're cousins who like each other, and they're the sole living relatives.)
Damon Runyon meets M&L, literally. DR gets story credit here. But M&L don't act as DR personas, except that DM wears dark shirts with light ties. The DR characters are RS, SL & others I didn't list above.
Gangsters/bookies want to influence the race a certain way, so they send DM, who owes them $$ for gambling debts, to make it so.
Cousin JL has a way with animals and wants to be a vet. He meets PC, an actual vet, and strikes up a romance.
Strange jockey RH is imported from England (why?), but has a romance with alcohol. Guess who rides the horse instead.
IMDb doesn't seem to want to call this a musical, but we have 4 songs performed and a couple more mimed by JL, so I'm gonna count it as such. (I submitted a change, but it didn't go through immediately.)
Hal Wallis Prod., distr. Paramount, dir. Marshall; 6
