With the help of the singer and dancer Dixie Leonhard, U.S. entertainer Eddie Sparks wants to bring some fun to the soldiers during World War II.
Director: Mark Rydell
Stars: Bette Midler, James Caan, George Segal.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101902/
Watched online, good print.
26 songs in the Soundtracks.
Rated 6.3 by 4.6k+ IMDb voters, and 6 by me on 2015-05-06, I'm upgrading this today.
It's not as a music/al that this scores (hehe), but as a drama. BM sacrifices her husband to WW2 and her son to the Vietnam conflict, and even sees him get killed (with many others) during her visit to an area that was really off limits due to excessive activity. She also has a traumatic experience in the Korean battlefield, but with a stranger.
All this is conveyed when she tells a visitor about her (mostly unpleasant) memories of JC. They are about to get a Presidential award for their long history of entertaining troops during our wars. JC is a Bob Hope-type song/dance/comedian whose theme song is I Remember You, but offstage he's a nasty, ruthless man. The history of BM & JC extends beyond the wars to having their own sitcom/variety TV show, but her uncle GS, who's been JC's writer for over a decade before he brought them together, gets fired for having some intersection with communism.
So the film covers major historical events in the mid-20th century through personal stories. This is its strength. And it was also nice to hear 40s-style music again.
distr. Fox, dir. Rydell; 7-
