We're Not Dressing

Paramount, 1934
Starring Bing Crosby, Carole Lombard, Ethel Merman, and Leon Errol
Directed by Norman Taurog
Music by Harry Revel and others; Lyrics by Mack Gordon and others

We head from Puerto Rico to the Pacific for our next musical cruise. Crosby headlines a cast of comics, kooks, and playboys who discover that paradise isn't what it looks like in the travel posters when they end up marooned on a tropical isle. How does this Gilligan's Island-esque tale of love between the classes look today? Let's take a trip on a yacht this time and find out...

The Story: Socialite Doris Worthington (Lombard) is bored with the long yacht trip and her two pampered suitors, Prince Alexander (Jay Henry) and Prince Michael (Ray Milland). She passes the time sparring with singing sailor Stephan Jones (Crosby). Her best friend Edith (Merman) is more interested in pursuing her drunk Uncle Hubert (Errol). Hubert attempts to drive the ship while soused in a fog, running into a reef. Stephan rescues Doris while the others make for the lifeboats, but the princes take credit for getting her ashore.

Stephan tries to get the group to help him find food and build a shelter, but they refuse to do anything resembling work...at least until they smell Stephan's meal of mussels and coconuts. Even then, Doris would rather snitch his food than get his own. He does finally get them all working on a shelter, but Doris is still angry. She figures she has a way to get back at him when she encounters scientists Grace (Gracie Allen) and George Martin (George Burns). They give her tools and clothes, which she floats to Stephan. He's elated...and she begins to wonder if the joke is so funny when she sees how dedicated he is to helping the others.

The Song and Dance: Crosby may not be the first person you think of when you think "poor sailor with building skills," but he does fairly well as the sailor who is a lot more savvy than meets the eye. George Burns and Gracie Allen, favorites of radio and (later) TV, have more to do with the plot than you think as the zany wife who creates weird inventions and her slightly exasperated interpreter. Merman has a couple of good sequences with rubber-legged Errol, including two fun duets. And yes, that is later Oscar-winner Ray Milland as one of Lombard's royal suitors.

Favorite Number: Crosby kicks things off on the deck insisting "I Positively Refuse to Sing," which turns into a medley of popular songs of the era (including "Did You Ever See a Dream Walking?" and "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?"). As mentioned, Merman and Errol make the most of their two goofy duets, "It's an Old Spanish Custom" on the yacht and the brief "Let's Be Domestic" while helping to build a shelter on the island. Crosby serenades Lombard with "Once In a Blue Moon" and a bear with "May I?"

Crosby also gets the movie's best - and most pointed - song. He's working on a shelter of his own while performing "Love Thy Neighbor." It may sound like one of Bing's usual ballads, but in this context, it becomes a commentary on the refusal of the rich to help their fellow man, including a still-haughty Lombard.

Trivia: This was based after the 1902 J.M Barrie play The Admirable Crichton. Doris even refers to it at one point, when Crosby is paying more attention to trying to figure out how to get their camp site water than to her.

What I Don't Like: The story is thin and really kind of strange. Burns and Allen are even less believable as scientists than Crosby is as a sailor. Merman has even less to do beyond her two songs. Lombard manages the appropriate spoiled attitude for the occasion, but otherwise comes off as disappointingly bland.

There's a rather odd sequence when an angry Stephan literally drags Doris across the island after he's discovered her deception with the tools, ties her to the beams of the house they built, and chews her out. While Doris shouldn't have made fun of him, this sequence can come off as uncomfortably abusive nowadays.

The Big Finale: Fun time-waster if you love Crosby or the cast, or run into it on TCM.

Home Media: Currently only available via the Universal Vault made to order collection and two Bing Crosby and Carole Lombard sets. (My copy comes from the Bing set.)

DVD - Universal Vault
DVD - The Bing Crosby Collection
DVD - Carole Lombard: The Glamour Collection