The Inspector General (1949)

Warner Bros, 1949

Starring Danny Kaye, Walter Slezak, Gene Lockhart, and Elsa Lanchester

Directed by Henry Kostner

Music and Lyrics by Sylvia Fine

Danny Kaye was at the height of his popularity as one of the most beloved comedians in the world when he did his one and only vehicle for Warners. Based on the 1832 Czech play The Government Inspector, and with music entirely by his wife Sylvia Fine, this also wound up being one of the biggest hits of Kaye's career. Is it still worth running for today? We'll begin in the small French town of Brodny, where the Mayor (Lockhart) and his corrupt cronies just got a most unwanted message, and find out...

The Story: The Mayor and his cronies are terrified when they get a message telling them that the Inspector General is coming to their town. The Inspector is known for demanding justice and honesty, and the Mayor and his family members whom he's assigned to office care about nothing but furnishing their own lavish lifestyle with tax money. They think a man who wandered into town and was arrested is the Inspector General. His real name is Georgi (Kaye), a kind but illiterate peasant who wandered into town after his gypsy boss Yakov (Slezak) fired him. The Mayor and his men dress him well and give him everything he asks for. The Mayor's wife (Lanchester) thinks he's her ticket out of town and flirts with him.

Even as Georgi enjoys their hospitality, Yakov makes his way to town and convinces Georgi to let him stay. Georgi is more interested in the pretty maid Leza (Barbara Bates). She tells him that the Mayor bought an organ for the church with taxpayers' money, then sold it to a nearby town. Yakov tries to convince Georgi to take bribes from the Mayor and his relatives to pay for the organ, then conspires with the Mayor to increase his sum. Georgi's horrified, even more so when the Mayor and his men plot to kill him. Yakov's quick thinking saves him, but Georgi manages to stop him from making off with the money. Fortunately for Georgi, the real Inspector General is on his way, and he's far more appreciative of honest men with no education than educated men with no honesty.

The Song and Dance: One thing I like about Danny Kaye is he's one of the few golden-age comedians who can pull off historical roles and manage to be dashing and funny at the same time. This would be his first of three historical movies (The Court Jester and Hans Christian Andersen would be the other two), and he runs with it, commanding when playing the Inspector, adorable and timid with Yakov, delightful showing off to the town in his patter numbers. Slezak and Lancaster take the other honors as his crafty boss who is more greedy than evil and the Mayor's love-starved wife. Gorgeous costumes and stunning Technicolor, even in the slightly blurry public domain prints generally available, ably bring the world of eastern Europe in the 1830's to life. 

The Numbers: We open with "The Medicine Show" as Kaye shows off his tongue-twisting dexterity Georgi's patter number intended to sell the phony elixir to the townspeople. "Brodny" is the chorus number that introduces Georgi to the townspeople as they all gather to greet the Inspector. It's heard again in the ending, as they salute their new Mayor. (He struggles to pull out his sword both times.) Georgi, nervous about being discovered, sings the title song after Yakov convinces him to stay. This goes into "Soliloquy for Three Heads" as three different versions of Georgi act as consciences and try to convince Georgi to stay or go. He does an instrumental acrobatic number with soldiers in training as he tries to hide from a general who saw him selling phony medicine with Yakov. 

Hoping to cheer up Leza and make her see that she can be more than a kitchen maid, he sings about "Happy Times" when they're downstairs together. One of the cronies (Walter Catlett) sings "Onward, Onward" when he's trying to explain his reasons for being corrupt to Georgi. Georgi launches into the "Gypsy Drinking Song" to distract the Mayor from his plan to retrieve the church organ, while the Mayor just hopes he drinks a poisoned glass of wine.

What I Don't Like: If you're not a fan of Kaye, you probably won't be into this. He has the lion's share of the songs except for the "Brodsky" chorus number and most of the best set pieces. This also doesn't have a lot in common with the book. In the original book, it was a Russian worker, not a French peasant, who accidentally fooled everyone. There was no church organ, no love interest, no gypsy boss or elixir. Fine's music, while not bad, isn't the best she's done for her husband, with "Happy Times" as the only standout.

The Big Finale: If you're a fan of Kaye or loved The Court Jester, you'll have just as much fun with his earlier venture into comedy in another time and place.

Home Media: Best place to find this public domain title would be on streaming. Almost every streaming service, especially the free ones, has it in one form or another.

Tubi

Pluto TV On Demand

Amazon Prime

YouTube

Happy Memorial Day! - Let's Face It

Paramount, 1943

Starring Bob Hope, Betty Hutton, Eve Arden, and ZaSu Pitts

Directed by Sidney Lanfield

Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter and others

Let's celebrate the upcoming Memorial Day weekend with the last of the four comedies Bob Hope did set in the military. On Broadway in 1941, Let's Face It was a farce with Cole Porter songs that made stars out of Danny Kaye as one of three soldiers who are hired by bored wealthy women to escort them and Eve Arden as the most prominent of those women. It was a surprise hit despite less-than-stellar reviews that didn't consider it to be one of Porter's better scores. How does it look nowadays? Let's begin, not at the barracks, but at a dairy farm that is also a health spa for overweight women and find out...

The Story: Winnie Porter (Hutton) is getting tired of her fiancee, Private Jerry Walker (Hope) ducking out of getting married. On the day they're supposed to finally tie the knot, Winnie catches Jerry selling junk food to her clients, and the Army catches him when he accidentally drives a Jeep through a wall. Desperate to pay off the Jeep, he convinces his friends Barney (Dave Willock) and Frankie (Cully Richards) to join him in arranging dates for wealthy Maggie Watson (Arden) and her friends Cornelia Figeston (Pitts) and Nancy Collister (Phyllis Povah). The ladies are tired of their husbands going off on "fishing trips" and leaving them alone. Furious when they catch them with the women, Winnie and Frankie and Barney's girlfriends Muriel (Dona Drake) and Jean (Marjorie Weaver) take the ladies' husbands out on dates at the same nightclub. Unfortunately, the boys' superior officer Sergeant Wiggins (Joe Sawyer) is also out on the town. When he catches them, it sends the boys fleeing again.

The Song and Dance: Though Hope and Hutton both have some good moments, Arden and the older ladies are the ones who really steal the show. They get all the best lines and have some of the best moments, including when their husbands catch them with the soldiers! Hope does get a few moments of his own to shine, notably in the beginning when he's trying to hustle the ladies with the sweets and the end when the guys are fleeing the entire mess. 

The Numbers: We open with "The Milk Song" as Winnie leads ladies of all shapes and sizes in an exercise class. Winnie and Jerry say "Who Did? I Did? Yes I Did!" as they sing along to an album Winnie made and Jerry tries to show off on Winnie's exercise equipment. "Let's Face It" is the sole chorus number as the Army soldiers sing about the presents their girlfriends sent them. "Who Did?" is heard later as an instrumental dance number for the trio of soldiers as they literally stick together to keep the overly amorous older ladies at bay and as they finally do dance with the women. When we get to the nightclub, two dancers do an instrumental routine that seemed to mainly involve variations on the woman smacking the man. Winnie gives her own option on romance as she insists "Let's Not Talk About Love."

Trivia: Jules Styne and Sammy Cahn wrote "Who Did? I Did! Yes I Did!"

Let's Face It debuted on Broadway in 1941 with Kaye in Hope's role singing two patter numbers written by his wife Sylvia Fine in addition to Porter's songs. As mentioned, it was a surprise hit, running two years in New York and a year in London in 1943. It pretty much disappeared after the London run, other than a TV version in 1954 with Bert Lahr and Gene Nelson as the soldiers and Vivian Vance in Eve Arden's role.

What I Don't Like: No matter who wrote the music, this isn't really much of a musical. I really wish they'd kept more of the Cole Porter score, even if it wasn't one of his best. It might have fleshed out more of the characters. We barely see Winnie other than her numbers, and Jerry's buddies and their girls are fairly interchangeable. 

The Big Finale: Mainly for really big fans of Hope, Arden, Porter, or small-scale 40's musicals. 

Home Media: Which makes it just as well that the only places you can currently find this are on YouTube and the Internet Archive.

YouTube

Internet Archive

Li'l Abner (1959)

Paramount, 1959

Starring Peter Palmer, Stubby Kaye, Leslie Parrish, and Billie Hayes

Directed by Melvin Frank

Music by Gene dePaul; Lyrics by Johnny Mercer

Lil' Abner was one of the most popular comic strips of the mid-20th century. From 1934 to 1977, millions of Americans followed the hilarious shenanigans going on in the Kentucky hillbilly town Dogpatch, where characters had names like Earthquake McGoon and Evil-Eye Fleagle and the spoof was broad, hilarious, and firing everywhere. The main characters were the title character, a handsome but hulking young man who was forever being pursued by the sweet Daisy Mae. When Daisy Mae finally caught him in 1952, it was a national event. The strip was popular enough to inspire a hit Broadway musical in 1956. The film version did well enough when it debuted in 1959, but is it still as funny almost 70 years later? Let's begin on "A Typical Day" in Dogpatch and find out...

The Story: Things are moving along in Dogpatch pretty much the way they usually do, with formidable Mammy Yokum (Hayes) giving her strapping son Abner (Palmer) his Yokumberry Tonic, and Abner being chased by lovely Daisy Mae Scragg (Parrish). The ladies are more excited about Sadie Hawkins Day, when the women of the town chase the men they hope to marry. They're shocked to find out Sadie Hawkins Day may not go on this year when Dogpatch is declared the most useless town in the US and is marked for nuclear bomb testing. 

The residents toss out everything they can think of to keep their town from being destroyed, until Mammy tells the government about that Yokumberry tonic. Not only does the government want the tonic, but so does General Bullmoose (Howard St. John). He enters his mistress Appassionata Von Climax (Stella Stevens) in the Sadie Hawkins Day Race and has her catch Abner. She'll marry him and get the tonic recipe, then kill him. 

Daisy Mae and Abner's parents are so horrified when they discover Bullmoose' plot, Daisy Mae agrees to marry Earthquake McGoon (Bern Hoffman), "the dirtiest wrassler in the world," to get him to help. Daisy thinks she'll be stuck being McGoon's wife, but it's the government who figure out what the tonic really does when they use it on the men of Dogpatch...and Abner's Pappy (Joe E. Marks) who finds a way to give his strapping son the gumption to go after the lady he truly loves.

The Song and Dance: You can't fault the cast on this one. Most of them were in the stage version as well, including Palmer as a perfect Abner, Stubby Kaye as the matchmaker Marryin' Sam (who leads most of the chorus numbers), and Julie Newmar, who doesn't need to speak a word for the audience to understand why she's called Stupefyin' Jones. My favorite by far is Billie Hayes, who replaced Charlotte Rae as Mammy on Broadway. I hope she was as much fun as she is here. "Formidable" doesn't begin to describe this tough-minded witch of a hillbilly. You can certainly see why she'd go on to play a more obvious witch in the even stranger world of Sid Kroft over a decade later. The Technicolor is gorgeous, a riot of rainbow colors mixed in every way that shouldn't work and amazingly does. Some really fun songs too, including the hit "I'm Past My Prime" for Kaye and Leslie Parrish.

The Numbers: We open over the credits with "A Typical Day," as the residents of Dogpatch introduce themselves and their unique home. Abner and the younger men of the town sing about what they'd do "If I Had My Druthers." Marryin' Sam leads the towns folk in a rousing salute to local hero "Jubilation T. Cornpone," which is heard briefly again in the finale after Dogpatch is saved. "Don't That Take the Rag Offen the Bush" and "Room Enough for Us" are numbers for the townspeople before and after learning they have to evacuate their home. 

Abner finally admits that yes, he does kinda have feelings for "Namely You," Daisy Mae. "What's Good for General Bullmoose" is performed by his lackeys several times, usually whenever he's come up with another nefarious idea. Every woman in town chases after the closest thing to eligible males during the wild Sadie Hawkins Day Ballet, including Appasionata and Daisy Mae. Daisy laments that "I'm Past My Prime," ignoring the fact that Marryin' Sam is more interested in taking her to the altar. "I Wish It Could Be Otherwise" is Abner and Daisy's big ballad right before she's supposed to marry Earthquake McGoon. The ladies of Dogpatch demand "Put Em' Back" twice, in the lab after they find out their men are now stronger but also less romantic, and in the finale, leading to "The Matrimonial Stomp" with Marryin' Sam.

Trivia: Look for Jerry Lewis in a cameo as Dogpatch resident Itchy McRabbit, and Donna Douglas (later Elly May Clampett on The Beverly Hillbillies), Valerie Harper, and Beth Howland as three of the Dogpatch ladies who later catch themselves husbands. 

Lil' Abner debuted on Broadway in 1956 and was a hit, running over a year. As mentioned, Charlotte Rae was the original Mammy but left early in the show's run, Tina Louise was Appasionata Von Climax, and Edie Adams was Daisy Mae. It's only returned to New York in an Encores concert since then, but is fairly popular with regional and high school theaters. 

The film cut a couple of numbers from the original show, including a really nice ballad for Abner and Daisy, "Love In a Home," a number for the scientists "Oh Happy Day," and one for General Bullmoose, "Progress Is the Root of All Evil." 

What I Don't Like: The stage origins of this one show all too plainly. Everything is filmed flat and looks like the stage play it's based on. The sets are about as fake as you can get, which admittedly does go with the comic book vibe. As in many musicals of the 1950's, the chorus numbers really have nothing to do with anything - "Rag Offen the Bush" and "Room Enough for Us" come out of nowhere and contribute nothing to the story. Also, if you don't go in for broad comedy or hillbilly comedy, or you don't know much about the mid-late 50's, you'll probably want to hurry elsewhere quickly. 

The Big Finale: This is funny and tuneful enough to get a recommendation if you love wacky hillbilly comedies or the big, bold, bright musicals of the 50's and 60's. 

Home Media: Don't be fooled - this one is currently DVD-only. Plex is listed as having it online, but they really show the non-musical, black and white 1940 film version. (Which admittedly has a few virtues of its own, including Buster Keaton as Native Lonesome Polecat.)

DVD

Happy Mother's Day! - Three Daring Daughters

MGM, 1948

Starring Jeanette MacDonald, Jose Iturbi, Jane Powell, and Edward Arnold

Directed by Fred M. Wilcox

Music and Lyrics by various

Let's celebrate a day devoted to mothers with a movie about a mother and her very devoted offspring. Jeanette MacDonald's last starring role had been in the spy comedy Cairo in 1942. She was last seen in a cameo in Universal's big wartime revue Follow the Boys in 1944. This was intended to be a bit of a comeback for her after she spent time focusing on opera. For Jane Powell, this was her third movie, and her second of five times she'd try to play matchmaker to a single parent. How does the story of a harried mother who marries a concert pianist on a trip, only to discover her daughters want to get her together with her ex-husband, look in a time when divorce and blended families are far more common? Let's begin at the graduation ceremony of older teen Tess Morgan (Powell), who is disappointed when she sees an empty chair in the audience that should be filled by her mother Louise (MacDonald), and find out...

The Story: Louise is late because she fainted at her job as an editor for Modern Design Magazine. Dr. Cannon (Harry Davenport) insists that she takes a vacation alone to help her nerves. She takes a month-long cruise to Cuba. On board, she meets concert pianist Jose Iturbi (Himself), who is playing with the ship's orchestra. They end up falling in love and marrying. Trouble is, Louise told the girls their father was a wonderful man, when he was really a bad father who abandoned his wife and daughters. She didn't want them to feel bad about their father, but her trying to protect them backfires when they go to their father's boss Robert Nelson (Arnold) and ask him to bring their father back so he can re-marry her. They're shocked when she finally admits she married Iturbi and try to drive him away, until they realize just how much in love Louise and her new husband are.

The Song and Dance: This is charmingly low-key for a big MGM musical in the late 40's. It's mostly just MacDonald, the three young ladies, and Iturbi, with Arnold occasionally tossing in blustery reactions as the girls beg him to get their father home or keep him from coming and interrupt his meals. MacDonald is warm and affectionate with the girls, and you can understand why they adore her so much, they try to interfere with her love life. I especially love the sweet scene when the girls call their mother shipboard to serenade her on her birthday. There's some lovely costumes too, with lavish gowns for MacDonald in Cuba and attractive teen and kids' clothing for the girls. 

The Numbers: We open with the young ladies of Miss Drake's School for Girls singing their "Alma Mater" as Tess tries to ask her youngest sister Alix (Elinor Donahue) where their mother is. She finally arrives in time to see Tess perform "Passipied." "The Dickey Bird" is heard three times. The first time has the three girls playing it for their mother, who joins in. The second is in the finale; Iturbi joins in here as well. Tess sings "Flurette" to get Morgan's attention from his meal when the girls first descend on his mansion. 

Iturbi's first solo is "Lieberstraum," which he plays on the ship with an orchestra. He plays "Where There's Love" for Louise the next night. She also briefly performs "You Made Me Love You." His real-life wife Amparo joins him for the "Rumanian Rhapsody In A, Opus 11 No.1" at the big Cuban concert. The girls adorably sing "Happy Birthday" and part of "Dickey Bird" over the phone for their touched and impressed mother. The only chorus number is the brief "Ritual Fire Dance" at the show in Cuba. The dancers sing "Happy Birthday" in Spanish for Louise here, too. 

After Louise and Iturbi return from the cruise, they think he's there to audition Tess. She sings "Juliet's Waltz" from Romeo et Juliet for him. Iturbi conducts the "Allegro Appasinato, Opus 10" with a huge classical orchestra at a concert hall. Louise's second song with Iturbi as she rehearses with him at the concert hall is "Sweethearts."  The girls play "Route 66" at home, claiming Iturbi knows nothing about modern music. Iturbi repeats it and plays it quite well, swing and all. Tess sings "Springtide" with her mother to apologize for driving Iturbi away and calling their father without permission. 

What I Don't Like: The story occasionally edges into something more annoying than cute, especially in the second half. On one hand, what the girls did stepped out of bounds, and the older ones in particular were modern levels of bratty about it. On the other hand, Louise should not have lied about their father, whether she was trying to protect them or not. The complicated story is basically sitcom fluff that would turn up in every other family comedy of the 80's and 90's. Iturbi is no more interesting wooing a woman closer to his own age than he was as the object of Jane Powell's affection in Holiday In Mexico two years before. 

The Big Finale: Just sweet enough to be charming Mother's Day viewing with your own Mom this Sunday.

Home Media: Easily found on DVD and streaming.

DVD

Amazon Prime

Michael (2026)

Lionsgate/Universal, 2026

Starring Jaafar Jackson, Colman Domingo, Nia Long, and Miles Teller

Directed by Antoine Fuqua

Music and Lyrics by Michael Jackson and others

I have a more personal connection here than I do to most musical biographies. I grew up alongside Michael Jackson's solo career. Off the Wall debuted four months after I was born. Thriller was one of the first albums I remember my family buying. We had Bad on cassette and Dangerous on CD in later years. I heard the stories about Jackson, about his bizarre behavior, how he was isolated, how he was a genius, about the infamous Pepsi accident...but as an 9-year-old when this movie ends in 1988, I cared nothing about all of that. I only knew I loved his songs, just like millions of other kids then. Does this movie fill in the gaps? We begin at a major concert and a man coming out for a number before fading into the past. Let's head to Gary, Indiana, as one small boy looks longingly out at the children playing in the snow, and find out...

The Story: That little boy is Michael Jackson (Juliano Krue Valdi), the youngest of the 8 Jackson children. Their father Joe Jackson (Domingo) is grooming them to go on the stage as a rock act, determined that they should have more than his grueling job in the steel mills. He pushes Michael and his sons hard and treats them rough, including using the strap when they speak against not having normal childhoods. The rehearsals pay off. They get bigger and bigger gigs, eventually landing a deal with Motown Records as The Jackson 5. Michael is delighted to learn all aspects of the record business from Motown's owner Berry Gordy (Laurenz Tate), but his father doesn't like sharing his son with other father figures.

The Jackson 5 rise to the top as one of the biggest artists on the Motown label, but despite them now having a far more lavish home, Michael is becoming more and more isolated. He loves the many pets his parents buy him, including a giraffe and a llama, but has no friends his own age. Gordy encourages Michael to go out on his own, but Joseph is afraid of what that would mean for the family and keeps him touring with the Jackson 5.

By 1979, Michael (Jackson) is a boy in a grown man's body who still loves toys and collects unique pets, including a chimp named Bubbles (Lily Colucci) he saved from a testing facility. He's even more eager to go solo after leaving Motown for Columbia's Epic Records label. Despite the tremendous success of his Off the Wall and Thriller albums and Michael having his new lawyer John Branca (Teller) fire his father via fax, Joseph is still convinced Michael is a little boy who will never leave the family. When the Pepsi commercial he talks Michael into doing with his brothers goes wrong and Michael ends up in the hospital, Michael has the time to reconsider his life, where it's headed, and just how loyal he should be to his abusive father. 

The Song and Dance: For all the cliches, there's some terrific performances here. Yes, Jaafar is Jackson's nephew, but he's wonderful as his uncle, ably capturing his slightly dorky little-boy mannerisms, his vanity over his nose and his skin disorder, and even giving us a hint of the bizarre paranoia and obsession with children that eventually took over his life in the 90's. Long and Domingo may be even better as Michael's soft-spoken mother who protests how he's treated and his dominating father who sees his sons as his ticket out of Gary and poverty...as long as they stay together. Jackson's real-life family had input on this, assuring that the costumes and sets are perfect reflections of what Jackson wore and where he lived.

The Numbers: We open with Jackson's "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" in 1988 at a sold-out concert in London. After we fade in on 1964, we get the Jackson 5 rehearsing "Big Boy," and seeing what a taskmaster Joseph was. "Oh How Happy" is their first montage number as we see Joseph getting them bigger and better gigs. "I'll Be There" is the song that gets them into Motown. They try to get Michael to record "You've Changed," but he can't stop dancing, even in place. "Stand" gives us their act through the years, as we move from polished home-made brocade vests to late 60's Paisley-and-fringe. Michael's thrilled to see Gladys Knight (Liv Symone) and the Pips perform their huge hit "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," but their "Never Can Say Goodbye" is an even bigger success. 

The Jackson 5 has a string of hits in the early-mid 70's, including "ABC," "Who's Lovin' You," and "I Want You Back." By 1979, Michael is a grown man, and it's becoming obvious that he's by far the most popular of the group. He gets his father to let him make Off the Wall for Epic Records after his solo ode to his pet rat "Ben" is a surprise success. "Don't Stop 'Till You Get Enough" and "I Can't Help It" are a smash, but Joseph would rather his son continue to record songs like "Rockin' Robin," "The Love You Save," and "We've Got a Good Thing Going" with his brothers.

Michael finally breaks from his family, hiring gang members from LA to dance in his "Beat It" video and turning "Thriller" into a dynamic horror tribute. His incredible performance of "Billie Jean" on the Motown at 25 TV special cements his popularity. He's heard humming "Smile," a song written by his idol Charlie Chaplin, before his father turns up again with his proposals. "Billie Jean" is briefly reprised during the Pepsi commercial before the pyrotechnics set fire to Michael's hair. The movie ends with Michael singing with his brothers before we return to "Human Nature" and "Bad" in London for Michael's first solo tour.

Trivia: This movie was originally supposed to come out in 2024, but it was delayed to 2025 due to the screen writer's strike in 2023. Heavy re-writes when the ending had to be reshot forced it to be moved to April 2026.

The movie was originally supposed to end with the allegations of child abuse Michael had to deal with in 1993, but the family protested, and due to a legal clause, it had to be re-written. Janet Jackson, Michael's younger sister, respectfully asked to be left out as well, and Diana Ross had to be written out due to legal clauses.

This is far from the only musical dealing with Michael Jackson's career. There's a stage jukebox biography running on Broadway at press time, MJ - The Musical, that starts in 1992 during the Dangerous World Tour and discusses some of the same topics as the film. We also have three TV projects, The Jacksons: An American Dream miniseries from 1992, Man In the Mirror: The Michael Jackson Story from 2004, and the Lifetime drama Michael Jackson: Searching for Neverland from 2017. 

What I Don't Like: See the family involvement above. On one hand, I'm kind of glad this ends on a relatively positive note, especially after the real-life burn accident. On the other hand, they leave out a good chunk of Michael's history by stopping at 1988. Yes, those child abuse accusations were real, but so was Michael's continuing success. He had some of his biggest hits from 1988 onwards, including "Black and White," "Heal the World," "Will You Be There," and "You Rock My World." There's also the fact that, good performances aside, a lot of this comes off as bland, ridiculously cliched (even for a movie musical biopic), and way too campy, especially for something that lasts two hours. 

The Big Finale: Yes, it's cliched to high heck and a little on the bland side, but it's still worth checking out for the great music and performances if you're a huge Michael Jackson fan or are like me and remember when he was the King of Pop, the biggest performer on Earth.

Home Media: No word on when the movie will be on physical media, but the soundtrack is currently available. 

Vinyl Soundtrack

Daddy Long Legs (1955)

20th Century Fox, 1955

Starring Fred Astaire, Leslie Caron, Fred Clark, and Thelma Ritter

Directed by Jean Negulesco

Music and Lyrics by Johnny Mercer

This week, we jump ahead to the 1950's for one of my favorite underrated musicals. Leslie Caron was one of the most popular stars of the decade, in and out of musicals. She started the decade in the Oscar-winning An American In Paris with Gene Kelly, and while Lili wasn't a huge hit, her personal notices were glowing. Astaire personally asked her to star alongside him in this updated musical version of the 1912 novel of the same name. We've already seen it done once at this blog, as the adorable Shirley Temple vehicle Curly Top in 1935. How different is this version from that previous one? Let's begin at the home of millionaire Jervis Pendleton III (Astaire) as we see people touring his home and find out...

The Story: Jervis is on assignment in France when he stops at an orphanage to use their telephone. While there, he sees 18-year-old Julie Andre (Caron) working with the younger children and is enchanted with her vivacity, her creativity, and her intelligence. Over the protests of his fussy aide Griggs (Clark), he arranges for her to attend college in the United States with his niece Linda (Terry Moore). To avoid a scandal, he says he'll keep a hands-off approach, and she can write to him about her progress once a month. 

Jervis doesn't even look at Julie's letters at first, until his secretary Alice Pritchard (Thelma Ritter) brings them to his attention. Julie calls him her benefactor "Daddy Long Legs," after the long shadow the orphans saw when he was first in France, but she's getting tired of never hearing from him. He finally connects with her at a school dance while visiting Linda with her mother Gertrude (Kathryn Giveny) and falls for her, taking her out on the town and sending the boy who is interested in her to work in Bolivia. Griggs points out their rather large age difference, which makes Jarvis flee for several long business trips. Julie, however, is almost finished with college. She thinks she still hasn't met her "Daddy Long Legs" and wonders if he or Jervis really love her. It's Alice who finally convinces the men that age matters less than love, companionship, and compatibility. 

The Song and Dance: For all the trouble they had making this - Fred Astaire's wife died right before filming began and they almost replaced him, the studio originally wanted Mitzi Gaynor for Julie - it actually came out quite well. Astaire and Caron work better than you might think. Like Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face two years later, Caron's warm, airy persona helps to transcend their age differences. The Technicolor glows here, especially in Caron's two witty dream ballets and the gorgeous 50's gowns, tutus, and suits for Astaire and Clark. Mercer's songs are lovely too. "Something's Gotta Give" was nominated for an Oscar and has since become a jazz standard.

The Numbers: We open with Jervis showing off his drumming skills to an annoyed Griggs in the instrumental drum-and-dance routine "History of the Beat." Julie teaches the orphans that "C-A-T Spells Cat" as Jervis watches them in delight at the orphanage. She wanders around the outdoor classroom in shock and delight as an offscreen chorus sings about her "Daddy Long Legs" after she's told she'll be going to college in the US. "Welcome Egghead" the other college girls tease when Julie arrives. "Julie's Dream Ballet" is the first of two instrumental ballets. Julie imagines what her "Daddy Long Legs" looks like. Jervis dances as a Texas millionaire doing a square dance, a sensual playboy after all the ladies, or Julie's guardian angel. 

"The Sluefoot" is the big chorus number at the dance, with Ray Anthony and His Orchestra and the Pied Pipers. Jervis and Julie turn the intimate dance into a delightful moment. Jervis brings her to New York, where he sings "Something's Gotta Give" at the penthouse he sets her up in, and they dance together. This is followed by the instrumental "Dancing Through Life" ballet as the two kick up their heels in all of the fashionable Manhattan clubs. Julie's dream of meeting her benefactor becomes a "Nightmare Ballet" as she dreams of dancing for Jervis in a Paris ballet, encountering him in a smoky cafe in Hong Kong, and chasing him through carnival in Rio. The movie ends with the brief "Dream" as Julie finally realizes who her benefactor is. 

Trivia: This would be the only movie Caron or Astaire made for 20th Century Fox.

If Astaire looks a little red-eyed and upset at a few junctures...well, see the death of his beloved wife mentioned above. They pushed back filming to give him more room to process his grief.

This is the third version of Daddy Long Legs 20th Century Fox made, and the fourth time the 1912 children's novel made it to the big screen. In addition to Curly Top, Mary Pickford did a silent version in 1919, while Janet Gaynor would appear in a non-musical sound remake in 1931. It would become a London stage musical, Love From Judy, in 1952. 

What I Don't Like: First of all, while the age difference doesn't bother me, some people may find 50-something Astaire dancing with 20-something Caron (and kissing her in the end, a rarity for Astaire's films) to be a tad creepy. Second, this movie, for all the lovely art direction and costumes, didn't really need the lavish Cinemascope. It's really an intimate four-person story at its core. We have the one chorus number in "Sluefoot." Most of the songs are duets, solos, or ballets. Clark and Ritter are the only ones besides Astaire and Caron who even remotely register. We barely see Caron's roommates, which is a shame because they're pretty funny when we do meet them, and Kelly Brown as Jimmy McBride barely registers as window dressing.

The Big Finale: The age difference aside, this is a must-see if you're a fan of Astaire, Caron, or the big lavish ballet-filled musicals of the 1950's. 

Home Media: The DVD and Blu-Ray are hard-to-find and often pricey at this writing. Your best bet would be streaming. 

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Blu-Ray

Amazon Prime

Tin Pan Alley

20th Century Fox, 1940

Starring Alice Faye, Betty Grable, John Payne, and Jack Oakie

Directed by Walter Lang

Music and Lyrics by various

Tin Pan Alley marks a turning point for 20th Century Fox musicals. They'd been doing the same Busby Berkeley imitations as the rest of Hollywood since 1933, but the wild success of Alexander's Ragtime Band set the tone for their musicals through the mid-50's. It also made Faye one of their biggest stars. Here, she's joined by Grable, who had been banging around Hollywood for a decade at that point, comedian Jack Oakie, and relative newcomer John Payne for another "through the years" tale. This one revolves around the famous lane in New York where songwriters had their offices from the turn of the 20th century until well into the 60's. Does the story of two Tin Pan Alley songwriters who fall for a vaudeville sister act still go over today, or should it be given the hook? Let's begin, not on Tin Pan Alley, but in the boxing ring, where Francis "Skeets" Harrigan (Payne) is finishing a match, and find out...

The Story: Harrigan only boxes to pick up extra cash. He and his friend Harry Calhoun (Oakie) are songwriters with ambitions of setting up their own publishing house. They're very impressed with vaudeville sister act Katie (Faye) and Lily (Grable) Blane. Neither woman is especially impressed with them. Dancer Lily auditions for a series of increasingly bigger and more amorous producers, but Harrigan convinces singer Katie to stay with them after they turn a lovelorn songwriter's (Elisha Cook Jr.) little melancholy tune into a huge hit. 

Harrigan and Calhoun do get their publishing empire, thanks to Katie being able to plug their songs. She's impressed with the big patriotic number "America, I Love You" and is furious when Harrigan reluctantly lets star Nora Bayes (Esther Ralston) sing it instead. They talk her out of going to Chicago, but the "America" number is the last straw. She joins Lily in England, where they're a hit on the West End. Having lost their empire and their ability to sniff out a hit song, Harrigan and Calhoun join the Army when America enters World War I. Harrigan thinks he has no chance with Katie when he sees she now has a fiancee, Captain Reggie Carstair (John Loder), but Lily knows which man her sister really wants.

The Song and Dance: It's a shame Grable and Faye would never star together again. They're warm, funny, and believable as sisters. They even kind of look alike. I actually wish they got to spend even more time together. Payne is even better as the less-goofy half of the songwriting team. He's one of the few men in these Fox musicals who can hold up his end of the musical chores, and in fact may be the best thing about this. He and Faye have a warm rapport that makes it all the more heartbreaking when she takes off for London. 

The Numbers: Oakie gives us our first song, writing and dancing to "Dixie" as Harrigan plays. The Blane Sisters' first song is their attractive hula and tap routine to "In the Land of Sweet Aloha." It's enough to convince Harrigan and Calhoun that they are the ladies to put over their songs. Joe Cobb's (Cook) funeral instrumental waltz turns into the sole new song, the now-standard "You Say the Sweetest Things, Baby." We get a (thankfully) brief shot of a minstrel group in burnt cork makeup performing it, then a stripper on a moon, then two tap dancers doing a soft shoe, then Katie with the chorus boys. Katie's not happy when Harrigan insists she sing "On Moonlight Bay" at a nightclub to one-up a rival publishing house. They were supposed to be out together. 

Grable has more fun showing off her famous legs with the chorus to the tune of "Honeysuckle Rose." Katie and Harrigan start off singing "America, I Love You" together, but everyone on Tin Pan Alley (including the Roberts Brothers and the Brian Sisters) end up joining in. Despite how energetically Calhoun puts it over, Harrigan still rejects Cobb's "Good-Bye Broadway, Hello France." Rotund Billy Gilbert is "The Sheik of Araby," in a huge chorus number with the Blanes and girls in harem costumes that were so brief, they ended up having to reshoot it. The Nicholas Brothers have a fabulous dance routine right in the middle of it. The movie ends with the doughboys arriving home as Calhoun finally figures out the lyrics to the song he'd been struggling with throughout the film, "K-K-K-Katy." 

Trivia: Several songs were cut from this movie, including Grable's "When You Were a Tulip and I Wore a Big Red Rose" and "Get Out and Get Under" for Grable, Faye, and Oakie, were cut from the film. Both sequences survive; "Get Out and Get Under" can be found on the 1994 video release. 

What I Don't Like: "Sheik of Araby" aside, this is actually pretty small-scale for a big 40's musical. It's even in black and white. Despite how well she works with her friend Faye, Grable's part almost feels like an afterthought. She's barely in a good chunk of the movie. Most of it revolves around Harrigan trying to push his songs and Katie either getting tired of it or resigning herself to it, both of which get pretty annoying after a while. You wish we could see more of the sister act and what made them such a hit together and less of Harrigan and Katie chasing each other. 

The Big Finale: There's enough that's good here to recommend for fans of the four leads or the smaller-scale musicals of the 30's and 40's. 

Home Media: Alas, the only place you can find this at press time is YouTube, in a blurry copy that seems to have been recorded off of AMC sometime in the late 90's.

YouTube