Saturday, March 16, 2024

Happy St. Patrick's Day! - Top 'O the Morning

Paramount, 1949
Starring Bing Crosby, Barry Fitzgerald, Ann Blyth, and Hume Cronyn 
Directed by David Miller
Music and Lyrics by various

Let's celebrate the day of all things Irish with this unique musical mystery. This is the last of three films Fitzgerald and Crosby made together that began with the Oscar-winning Going My Way. All three revolved around Crosby's laid-back lifestyle clashing with Fitzgerald's more traditional one...and what better place for a clash of cultures than in Fitzgerald's native Ireland? Let's begin just outside of Blarney Castle and find out how an insurance investigator who is looking for the stolen Blarney Stone deals with a very traditional policemen and their differing worldviews.

The Story:  Joe Mulqueen (Crosby) arrives at the small town outside of the castle, only to be rejected by the fearful townspeople. The town's police chief Briany McNaughton (Fitzgerald) is especially distrustful of him. He wants to prove he and his deputy Hughie Devine (Cronyn) can solve a local case on their own, without outside interference. 

Joe ends up having more on his mind than finding the Blarney Stone. Briany's daughter Conn (Blyth) has been waiting for the day the man who fits the prophecy told to her by wise woman Biddy O'Devlin (Eileen Crowe). She's thrilled when it turns out Joe is the perfect match, and a fine singer to boot. Joe, however, hasn't told her why he's really in Ireland. Biddy knows, however, and it's her stories of Irish folk lore that eventually leads Joe, Briany, and Inspector Fallon (John McIntire) to the man who not only stole the Blarney Stone, but committed a murder, too.

The Song and Dance: This is probably the closest Crosby would get to appearing in film noir or doing a flat-out thriller. Truth be told, for most of the movie, the real interest is in how Crosby reacts to Irish folk lore and Ireland's colorful citizens. He and Blyth work relatively well together despite the two-decade difference in their ages. In addition to Fitzgerald, I also like Crowe as the enigmatic wise woman who knows far more than she'll ever tell and Cronyn as the deputy whose enthusiasm for the case hides a dark secret. 

Favorite Number:  Joe performs the title song three times, first over the credits, then later with the maid (Mary Field) who is cleaning his room, and near the end with the two McNaughtons. He sings "When Irish Eyes are Smiling" with a nervous little girl when he arrives in Ireland. His performance of "My Beautiful Kitty" on the accordion is sentimental enough for the policemen to let him out of jail, at least the first time.

 "The Donovans" is the big chorus number at Briany's cottage. It somehow manages to expand to three times its size to fit all of the whirling lads and lasses performing a lively group jig. The other new song "You're In Love With Someone" is the big ballad Joe sings to Conn after the party, before she shows Joe her father's doves. They sing the lovely Irish folk song "Oh, 'Tis Sweet To Think" together at the McNaughtons' cottage. "My Lagen Hunt," the haunting ditty sung by the little boy Pearse O'Neill (Jimmy Hunt) is what finally brings the real thief out of hiding.

Trivia: Crosby originally wanted Deanna Durbin to play Conn, but she had gone into retirement and would never make another film.

What I Don't Like: For all the talk of Irish folk lore, legends, and customs, this feels a lot less authentic than John Ford's opus The Quiet Man from three years later. Paramount probably kept this one on the lot and in black and white because Bing's previous two big-budget musicals flopped. Technicolor and location shooting might have gone a long way to enhancing the drama and adding a lot more real Irish whiskey flavor. This is more like watered-down green beer. 

Blyth is an excellent singer in her own right, on a par with Durbin. Why on Earth doesn't she have more to sing besides her part of "Oh, 'Tis Sweet to Think?" Not to mention, there's the mood whiplash. This is pretty fluffy stuff until the last 20 minutes, when it suddenly takes a screeching left turn into shadowy film noir territory. It ends happily, but getting there is surprisingly dark for an otherwise sweet comedy.

The Big Finale: If you're a fan of Crosby or Blyth or want to try something a little different for St. Patrick's Day, this venture into Irish folklore and mystery is worth checking out at least once.

Home Media: As far as I can tell, this exclusive to YouTube at the moment.

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Girl Happy

MGM, 1965
Starring Elvis Presley, Shelly Fabares, Gary Crosby, and Mary Ann Mobley
Directed by Boris Sagal
Music and Lyrics by various

Even Elvis headed to Ft. Lauderdale for some fun in the spring sun. This is the second of three MGM responses to the success of the Beach Party series. I covered the snow-bound first entry, Get Yourself a College Girl, back in January. This one features some of the same cast, this time in a story about a singer hired to chaperone a college girl who ends up falling for her. How does this come off today? To find out, we begin with a narrator telling us about the differences between warm Florida springs and the chilly March weather in Chicago, and why so many college students leave one for the other...

The Story: Rusty Wells (Presley) and his band are looking forward to their spring break in Ft. Lauderdale, but club owner "Big" Frank (Harold Stone) wants them to play four more weeks. Desperate to keep their time off, they agree to keep an eye on his daughter Valerie (Fabares) while she and her girlfriends are in Florida for Easter weekend. They think their job will be easy, until they see that Valerie and her friends are gorgeous blondes who are determined to meet boys and have fun in the sun.

Rusty at first pairs Valerie with nerdy Brentwood Von Durgenfeld (Peter Brooks) and pursues flirtatious Deena Shepherd (Mobley). Valerie is far more interested in handsome Italian playboy Romano Orlada (Fabrizio Mioni), while Deena doesn't appreciate Rusty constantly running out on her to rescue Valerie. He finally decides to escort Valerie himself, and ends up falling for her before Big Frank spills the beans. Now Rusty has to set things right between them, before Valerie gets herself - and half of Ft. Lauderdale - into real trouble.

The Song and Dance: This is almost the flip side of Get Yourself a College Girl set in a more typical tropical location. That one showed beach party-type antics from the girl's point of view. Being an Elvis vehicle, this one focuses more on the guys. Fabares and Elvis have so much chemistry and work so well together, she played his love interest in two of his later vehicles. Brooks and Nita Talbot have a few good moments as the nerd who claims he wants a woman whose brains match his and the stripper who introduces Valerie to the delights of taking it all off. 

Favorite Number: We open with Elvis performing the title song over the credits, and after they end, with his band in the Chicago nightclub. Valerie and her friends and Rusty and his band sing jauntily about their "Spring Fever" as the two groups drive to Florida. Rusty declares himself to be the "Ft. Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce" after he gets a load of Valerie at the pool and serenades her with the city's many charms. When she proves unresponsive, he reprises it for a more interested Deena. He and the band do "Startin' Tonight" and "Wolf Call" at their club date. Deena joins them for the latter, and gets really into it, too, wiggling with abandon. 

He sings "Do Not Disturb" while in his hotel room with Deena, but barely finishes before he has to go rescue Valerie. "Cross My Heart and Hope to Die" is his attempt to explain to her what happened. Stripper Sunny Daze's act consists of her removing a top and skirt made to look like newspapers while belting "I Got News for You." Valerie's drunken attempt at it later after she finds out why Rusty's in town is what leads to that riot in the club. Valerie gets in on another number, playing "The Meanest Girl In Town," complete with "I'm Evil" sign. 

Rusty encourages a group of college partiers on the beach to "Do the Clam" in order to distract Romano long enough to get Valerie away from him. He croons the gentle ballad "Puppet On a String" as he brings her back to the hotel later that night. They end the movie and the weekend back at the club with "I've Got to Find My Baby" and a reprise of the title song after Rusty does.

Trivia: Rusty's band was dubbed by The Jordinaires. 

What I Don't Like: While this is a lot less bland than the earlier Palm Beach Weekend and thankfully avoids that film's overwrought melodrama, it's also just as fluffy. Rusty's band members have slightly more to do than Valerie's friends, who barely appear as window dressing and in the "Spring Fever" number. Mobley doesn't come off nearly as well here as she did in Get Yourself a College Girl playing a thankless "other" role. And MGM seemed determined to stay on that huge lot of theirs. There apparently was some second-unit shooting in Florida, but most of the film was made in California, including the beach scenes, and lacks the authentic beach town feel of Palm Beach Weekend and the Beach Party films. 

The Big Finale: One of Elvis' best later films is fine for his fans and those who are looking for something fluffy and fun to watch during their own spring breaks. 

Home Media: Easily found on DVD and streaming (the latter currently from the Warner Archives). 

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Palm Beach Weekend

Warner Bros, 1963
Starring Connie Stevens, Troy Donahue, Robert Conrad, and Stephanie Powers
Directed by Norman Taurog
Music and Lyrics by various

Spring break is a rite of passage for many college students. It's often the first time they're able to go on a vacation with little or no adult supervision. It was especially important in the 60's and 70's, as Baby Boomers became teens and young adults and created a culture all their own. 

This week, we're going to check out two more movies on the spring break experience in the sexually liberated 60's, starting with Warners' lone contribution to the teen beach genre. This was really more their response to the overwhelming success of Where the Boys Are in 1960. Beach Party debuted during production and at least somewhat altered this look at Easter weekend for a group of teens and college students in the title desert resort. Let's join a college football team, along with tourist Gail Lewis (Stevens), on a Greyhound bound for the title city and find out...

The Story: Gail takes a room at a local hotel with Amanda (Zeme North). Slightly plain Amanda is able to throw men over her shoulder, but would rather be making out with them. Gail is attracted to two handsome young men, stuntman Doug "Stretch" Fortune (Ty Hardin) and playboy Eric Dean (Robert Conrad). Amanda ends up with weird and equally desperate college student Biff Roberts (Jerry Van Dyke). Local teen Bunny Dixon (Stephanie Powers) falls for sweet football star Jim Munroe (Donahue). Football coach Fred Campbell (Jack Weston) tries to keep his boys on the straight and narrow, but that's hard when he's being pursued by the hotel's owner Naomi Yates (Carole Cook). 

The weekend goes south almost the moment everyone arrives. Amanda spends most of the time dealing with Naomi's bratty son "Boom Boom" (Bill Mumy), who is determined to cause mischief. Drunks from the area stumble into a party and get into a fist fight with the football team that ends with all of the guests - including Bunny - in jail. Her father is furious and refuses to let her see Jim again. By the end of the weekend, Gail realizes that she's in over her head as well when Stretch and Eric's interest in her ends with a near-tragic car chase in the desert. 

The Song and Dance: They were going for Where the Boys Are, and they mostly succeeded. This is a decent look at how an influx of hormonal older teens and college kids affects one desert town. Stevens and Conrad get top honors as the girl who looks - and is trying to act - older than her age, and the spoiled young man who learns a rough lesson about responsibility and not always getting what you want. The location shooting around Palm Springs is gorgeous, especially some long shots of desert vistas that amply shows off the glowing color and bright bathing suits. 

Favorite Number: We open with Donahue performing "Live Young" over the credits as the college football guys plan their weekend and Conrad flirts with Stevens. Biff comes out to the pool with a guitar and insists that Stretch is playing the standard "Bye Bye Blackbird" too slow. They pick up the pace with a lively banjo-guitar duet. The Modern Folk Quartet performs two numbers, the second being "Song of the Ox-Drivers," at the Las Vegas nightclub before Connie's suitors fight over her.

Trivia: Stevens, Donahue, and Conrad were just ending their run on the action show Hawaiian Eye when this debuted. 

That's Mike Henry, who later played Tarzan and Junior Justice in the Smokey and the Bandit films, as the doorman who watches a parked car fall apart.

Screenwriter Earl Hammer Jr. would later go on to create the TV shows The Waltons and Falcon Crest

What I Don't Like: First of all, I'm disappointed this isn't more of a musical. Stevens is known as a singer, but doesn't get to sing, and Donahue is only heard over the credits. They couldn't have snuck a number in for one or the other somewhere? There's also the fact that, of the main cast, the only one who is even remotely the right age is Powers (who was 20 at the time). The others are all in their late 20's and 30's, way too old for teens and college students. 

The change in direction during production shows all over the place. The first half wants to be Beach Party in the desert, with Amanda tossing guys all over the place and Boom Boom dumping suds in the pool. It abruptly changes gears to Where the Boys Are during and after the disastrous party that ends with everyone in jail. In fact, what kicked off the fracas was one of the gang members attempting to force a girl to drink liquor when she didn't want to. After they get out, the gang is never seen or mentioned again. That near-tragic car race in the end seems more than a little out-of-place too, and a bit dark for everything that came before it. 

The Big Finale: Too unfocused to be my favorite vacation story, but not horrible if you love the cast or teen comedy-dramas from the 60's.

Home Media: Easily found on DVD and streaming, the former from the Warner Archives.

Saturday, March 9, 2024

Family Fun Saturday - Once Upon a Mattress (1972)

CBS, 1972
Starring Carol Burnett, Ken Berry, Jane White, and Wally Cox
Directed by Ron Field and Dave Powers
Music by Mary Rodgers; Lyrics by Marshall Barer

The 2005 Disney rendition of this show was far from the first time it was adapted for the small screen. The star of the original Broadway hit Carol Burnett appeared in two versions in 1964 and 1972. Along with White and Jack Gilford, who also appeared with her in the original Broadway cast, we have TV sitcom vets Cox and Ken Berry and then-hot stage ingenue Bernadette Peters in a wacky retelling of the Hans Christian Andersen story The Princess and the Pea. How nutty does this one get? Let's begin with Carol as she tells her daughter the fairy tale as a bedtime story and find out...

The Story: Prince Dauntless the Drab (Berry) wants to find a bride, but his controlling mother Queen Aggravain (White) gives every prospective princess a series of impossible tests that scares them off. No one in the kingdom can marry until Dauntless does. This is a problem for Lady Larkin (Bernadette Peters) and her knight suitor Sir Harry (Ron Husmann). They've had a...little indiscretion...and she's now expecting. King Sextimus (Gilford) can't do anything either, as he's under a curse that won't allow him to speak until "the mouse devours the hawk." 

Harry goes in search of a bride who can pass the tests and comes up with Princess Winifred (Burnett), who swims the moat to get in the castle. Call her "Fred." Fred is loud, brash, and has more energy than everyone else in the castle put together. Aggravain immediately hates her, but Dauntless wants to marry her. The queen devises a test that would have Fred feel a single pea under twenty mattresses. Larkin, Harry, and the Jester (Cox) lend a hand to make sure Fred will feel that darn pea no matter what!

The Song and Dance: No wonder Burnett loved this so much, she played Fred twice. She's got energy to spare and has some great routines, including her attempts to sleep on that towering bed. Berry is an adorably awkward Dauntless, Cox gets some of the best lines as the deadpan Jester who sees all and knows all, and Peters is hilarious as the sweet noblewoman with a big problem and a clueless boyfriend. The bright sets give the show the look of a pop-up storybook, and the colorful Bob Mackie costumes mix every color in the rainbow with total abandon.

Favorite Number: We open with Burnett singing "Many Moons Ago" as she tells the idealized picture book version of the story to her daughter. "An Opening for a Princess" gives us the actual version as Cox explains what's going on and we see the tests and learn Harry and Larkin's situation. Harry and Larkin admit that they'll be having an addition to the family "In a Little While." Princess Winifred tells everyone about "The Swamps of Home" when she arrives. She can out-dance the entire court, including the Queen and Prince, in "The Polish Panic." 

The Queen's ladies-in-waiting chant that the Queen wants "Quiet," when she's hardly quiet herself. While studying for her Princess Test, Fred laments that her "Happily Ever After" is a lot harder than for most fairy-tale heroines. Dauntless and his father have a "Man to Man Talk," or mime, about what Dauntless should expect on his wedding night. Harry and Larkin reprise "In a Little While" when they intend to run away. We end with the cast singing "An Opening for a Princess" as Dauntless carries the very worn-out Fred to their bed.

Trivia: The stage version started off-Broadway in May 1959, but moved uptown later that year. It played for over a year, until Burnett left the show. The 1960 London production with Jane Connell expired after three weeks. A Broadway revival in 2005 with Sarah Jessica Parker barely ran five months. Last month's Encores concert with Sutton Foster as Fred and Cheyenne Jackson as Dauntless seems to have been better received.

What I Don't Like: Once again, a lot was revised and eliminated from the Broadway version. Most of the Minstrel's exposition role went to Cox and to Lyle Waggoner as a nobleman the Queen is trying to seduce. Among the songs lost were the cute but extraneous "Very Soft Shoes," "Normandy" for Larkin, the Queen's "Sensitivity," and two more duets for Larkin and Harry, "Song of Love" and "Yesterday I Loved You." Oh, and if you don't like Burnett or her broad style of comedy, forget it. Also, I kind of wish we could have returned to the bedtime story prologue in the finale, if only to hear the kid's reaction to Burnett claiming that was the real story. 

The Big Finale: If you love Burnett, her show, or the wacky sitcoms of the late 60's and early 70's, you'll probably get a very big kick out of this satirical take on fairy tales. 

Home Media: This can currently be found as an extra on the DVD Carol + 2: The Original Queens of Comedy, a 1966 Burnett special that also includes Lucille Ball and Zero Mostel. It's also on YouTube (along with the long-lost 1964 version). 

Thursday, March 7, 2024

Alexander's Ragtime Band

20th Century Fox, 1938
Starring Alice Faye, Tyrone Power, Don Ameche, and Ethel Merman
Directed by Henry King
Music and Lyrics by Irving Berlin

By the time this came out, Faye was one of Fox's biggest stars. She had just made the semi-musical disaster film In Old Chicago with Power and Ameche, which was a huge hit. This one would be even bigger, Fox's biggest hit of the 1930's. Berlin himself wrote the story of how popular music changed in the years between the debut of his 1911 title song and 1938. In many ways, it also parallels Faye's career and how she went from platinum blonde Jean Harlow imitation to a warm honey-haired beauty who had a way with a ballad. How well does it look today? Let's begin in 1911, as Alexander (Power) plays classic music at a concert and find out...

The Story: What Alexander really wants to do is start his own band. He and his boys barely managed to get a job at a small-time club when another group quits. They grab the first sheet music they can find to play, which turns out to be a number that blowsy singer Stella Kirby (Faye) had been trying to push on the owner. She eventually joins them in the song, and later in the band. 

Alexander cleans up her low-down image as they go on to bigger and better clubs. Despite her initial resistance, she and Alexander end up falling in love. They're playing at the Cliff House when they try to get an audition with big-time New York producer Charles Dillingham. Turns out he only wants Stella. Alexander's angry and disappointed, but she does take the offer.

That's far from his only problem. The band breaks up when they're all drafted into World War I. Alexander does manage to put on a show for the Army that's a big hit, enough for the band to get back together after the Armistice. Their new singer is brash Jerrie (Merman), who not only lends her own unique sound to the Band, she falls for Alexander, too. Alexander, however, has never forgotten Stella, even though she's now a huge star on Broadway and is in love with former bandmate Charlie Dwyler (Ameche). Jerrie and the rest of the bad figure it's high time they brought Stella back into the fold, just in time for a huge jazz performance at Carnegie Hall.

The Song and Dance: It's the music and the cast who largely carry the day here. Faye and Merman may have opposing styles, but they both do equally well as the tough singer who starts as a floozy and ends up a star and the brassy belter who also loves Alexander...but understands better than him who he really cares about. Ameche is charming as the songwriter for the band who at least temporarily gets Stella, and Jack Haley gets a few good gags as a member of the band who keeps flirting with the same girl (Ruth Terry) for two decades. Fox spared no expense on the production, with gorgeous gowns for the ladies and spectacular recreations of San Francisco and New York  in the 1910's and 20's. 

Favorite Number: We kick off with the title song, played by Alexander at his band at that low-down bar. They start out playing it as a quieter parlor ballad, but by the time Faye kicks in with the lyrics, it's now the lively ragtime dance tune it was meant to be. We also get "Ragtime Violin," performed by members of the band. Stella defies Alexander and goes out dressed the way she wants for "International Rag." She does finally start to change her look for "This Is the Life."  Dancers Wally Vernon and Dixie Dunbar get a great duo ballroom routine here. 

Our first of two new songs is the ballad "Now It Can Be Told." Charlie first sings this for Stella after he's written it. She's so impressed, she brings it to the band, who perform it at the Cliff House this very night. Stella does "When the Midnight Choo Choo Leaves for Alabam'" so well, it sells Dillingham on her. A man at the recruiting station brings in the Band with "For Your Country and My Country." Jack Haley gets to sing "Oh How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning," the song Berlin himself introduced in the original Yip, Yip, Yaphank on Broadway in 1917. We also get two more authentic Great War era chorus numbers, "We're On Our Way to France" and "I Can Always Find a Little Sunshine at the W.M.C.A."

Jerrie first sings "Say It With Music" and "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody" when she's trying to convince Alexander to give her a chance. She and Stella do sing "Blue Skies" together, but Stella never gets to Alexander. The next montage takes us through the 20's, with Jerrie getting the big chorus number "Pack Up Your Sins and Go to the Devil" and the new "My Walking Stick" and Stella performing "Everybody Step" and the darker laments "Remember" and "All Alone." We get a montage of Berlin favorites at Carnegie Hall. Charlie joins the female chorus for "Easter Parade," Merman blares "Heat Wave," and the chorus gets "Marie."

Trivia: Three numbers were cut from the final film. Merman had a second big number in the Carnegie Hall finale "Marching Through Time," Ameche  had "Some Sunny Day," and Haley had a second comedy number with Wally Vernon and another dancer, "In My Harem." All exist and are included on the DVD. 

Not only was this 20th Century Fox's biggest hit film of the 30's, it was the top hit of 1938. 

John Carradine can be spotted near the end as the taxi driver who takes Stella to Carnegie Hall. 

It was nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Song ("Now It Can Be Told"), but only took home Best Scoring. 

The Cliff House was a real restaurant in San Francisco. It was rebuilt twice before the third version the band plays at opened in 1909. The restaurant closed in 2021, but the building still exists, and the exteriors look pretty much the same as they do in the movie.

What I Don't Like: When was this set again? It's historically accurate only for the first 20 minutes. Once the band starts getting popular, any attempt at history flies out the door of the Cliff House. After World War I, it looks like 1938 for the rest of the film. They don't even attempt to age the characters. You'd never know time passed at all if people didn't say it did. 

No matter how much Fox kept throwing him into them, Power never was comfortable in musicals. He's far stiffer here than either of his leading ladies. I suspect he'd be much happier with a sword than a baton. Haley and Ameche are far more at ease than he is. 

The Big Finale: If you love Faye, Merman, or Berlin, this lively look at some of his most popular songs is highly recommended. 

Home Media: It can only be found streaming at Vudu Fandango, but the DVD is readily available. 

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

365 Nights In Hollywood

Fox Film Corporation, 1934
Starring James Dunn, Alice Faye, Frank Mitchell, and Grant Mitchell
Directed by George Marshall
Music by Richard Whiting; Lyrics by Sidney Clare

Singer Alice Faye is in the spotlight this week in two of her earliest hits. She was an up-and-coming star at Fox when she made this, her fourth major film, and just 19 years old. James Dunn was also a new star at Fox, having made two movies with Shirley Temple earlier in 1934. The real story in Hollywood at this point were the backstage musicals Warners made with Busby Berkeley the year before. Suddenly, every studio in Hollywood wanted their own spectacular backstage shows, and Fox was no exception. How does their Tinseltown-set backstage story look today? Let's begin at an acting school run by former Hollywood director Jimmy Dale (Dunn) and find out t...

The Story: The acting school is really a front for Dale and con man Percy (Frank Marshall) to take hopeful actors' money. What Jimmy never expected is for a girl with genuine talent to walk through their doors. Alice Perkins (Faye) proves to be such a good singer, he decides it's time to return to Hollywood and make a movie starring her. Marshall still wants to play con games and skim the money intended for the film's budget from the naive young millionaire (Frank Melton) who is backing it, but Dale is falling for Alice and is happy to be back in Tinseltown. He'll see this movie through and make sure the money is there if it kills him and Alice. Alice just wants him to see her as more than a set of pipes.

The Song and Dance: First of all, I do like that this is set in movies, rather than it being a Broadway show like the Warners films. At least they're trying for something slightly different. Alice Faye may have platinum hair like Jean Harlow, but her warm, good-natured demeanor makes her a lot more than a mere vamp and pairs well with the equally down-to-Earth Dunn. There's some decent costumes, especially in the two big musical numbers, and the numbers themselves are a trip, to put it mildly.

Favorite Number: Our first real number isn't until almost fifteen minutes in, but it's "Give Him Love," which Alice sings at a party for the acting school. Dunn's so impressed with her voice he promotes her to leading lady, in his life and work. After Dale spends ten minutes berating and pushing Alice and trying to better her voice, we finally see her perform "I'd Like to Say Yes to You." It starts off ordinary, with Alice singing it with a line of chorus boys. Things really get bizarre when she chases John Bradford, as her smarmy co-star Adrian Almont. literally around the world. He keeps seeing different versions of her in every country he stops at, until he turns things around and chases her. There's some nice special effects early-on in the number when he keeps seeing her everywhere.

The finale number "My Future Star" is nearly as bizarre. It also starts out very meta, with Dole trying to decide which lady will star in his big number. Somehow, this becomes him and Alice imagining Mae West ends up in trees with Tarzan and gives him the kisses to end all kisses. We also briefly hear acting school student Jack Durant imitating Bing Crosby singing his huge hit "When the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day."

Trivia: Apparently, there's a reason the copy currently seen at Amazon is so bad. This was sourced from the only surviving print. 

What I Don't Like: Despite the relatively unique setting and story, this still follows all the standard beats for a backstage musical from this era. It wears its Busby Berkeley imitation card on its sleeve. The two big musical numbers are among the most bizarre I've ever seen in a major musical from this time. I know the Tarzan films and Mae West's comedies were popular in 1934, but their appearance in "My Future Star" makes no sense whatsoever. Nor does the around-the-world chase in "I'd Like to Say Yes to You." Durant and Frank Mitchell are supposed to be the comic relief as a pair of friendly ice delivery men who are also students at the acting school, but they're far more annoying than their are funny.

The Big Finale: Fans of Faye, Dunn, or the big Busby Berkeley-style musicals of the 30's will be glad to see this in any shape. It's worth checking out for those strange numbers.

Home Media: Easily found on DVD and on streaming.

Saturday, March 2, 2024

Family Fun Saturday - Pixel Perfect

Disney, 2004
Starring Ricky Ullman, Leah Pipes, Spencer Redford, and Chris Williams
Directed by Mark A.Z Dippe
Music and Lyrics by various

This is Disney's second TV musical under the Disney Channel Movie banner, predating even High School Musical. The internet was still something new and relatively uncharted when this movie debuted. The sky was the limit when it came to how it worked and what could be done with it. AI was also in its primitive form as computer programmers worked on creating images that could be inserted anywhere, even real life. What happens when a teenage boy creates a program that literally takes on a life of its own? Let's begin with that teen, Roscoe (Ullman) and his father (Brett Cullen) as they argue over what can be done with this new technology and find out...

The Story: Roscoe wants to help his best friend Samantha (Pipes) and her band the Zetta Bytes get a gig. Samantha was told that her group needs to dance, but she's more comfortable behind her guitar. Roscoe creates a sentient human hologram he names Loretta (Redford) who is a composite of Samantha and many girls he's seen in magazines. 

Loretta has no difficulty singing and dancing for the group. She's a huge hit, even after people figure out she's a hologram. Samantha, however, has a crush on Roscoe and resents how perfect Loretta is. Loretta wishes she could be human like Samantha, to feel emotions and rain on her face. When the record company that signs the girls tries to take Loretta's programming to make more musical stars, but Roscoe realizes that would make them less individual. 

Loretta flees into the Internet and mails herself to the one person who can help her be truly human, the one who doesn't think she's perfect...Samantha. When Samantha falls off the stage during a concert, she enters her mind to convince her that being human is a far happier experience than unattainable perfection. 

The Song and Dance: This one ended up being a real surprise. I was expecting a Disney version of the John Hughes comedy Weird Science. What I got was the touching and sad story of a boy who creates what he thinks is the perfect girl, until that girl wants to be more than his idea of perfection. 

Ullman's not bad as well-meaning Roscoe, but the movie really belongs to his girlfriends. Pipes and Redford are wonderful as the very human teen girl who wants Roscoe to see her, flaws and all, and the computer program who wishes she had those flaws. The last twenty minutes when Loretta confronts Sam in her mind, then manages to feel rain for the first time, are among the most heartbreaking in any Disney Channel film.

Favorite Number: We open with "Perfectly" sung over the credits. Samantha and the Zeta Byttes insist "Nothing's Wrong With Me" at their audition, but that's not what the producer thinks. "Notice Me" is Loretta's first big number when she's introduced with the band. We also get "If You Wanna Rock" and "Don't Even Try It." "Get Real" is ironically the song Loretta's performing when she starts flickering out, and people realize she's not human. Samantha ends with "When the Rain Falls," and there's not a dry eye in the house as she sings about Loretta and how she changed her life and Roscoe's.

What I Don't Like: The story, while sweet and sad, is also cliched to high heck. This is nothing people haven't seen in everything from AI: Artificial Intelligence to the aforementioned Weird Science. It's pretty much the leads' story. Roscoe's dad is the only other person who really registers. We barely get to see the other members of the band, or even the record executives who caused so much trouble. I would loved to have seen more of the inner workings of the internet that Loretta travels through, too. I thought that was a nice touch.

The Big Finale: If you think a Disney Channel musical can't be sad or dramatic, give this early attempt a shot. 

Home Media: Perhaps it's appropriate that this is streaming only at the moment. You can find it at Amazon Prime and Disney Plus with a subscription.