Starring Jane Withers, Pinky Tomlin, Rita Cansino (Hayworth), and Jane Darwell
Directed by Lewis Seiler
Music and Lyrics by various
Jane Withers was sort of 20th Century Fox's anti-Shirley Temple. She usually played spunky or even mean girls who could hold their own in a fight and certainly wouldn't put up with nasty old codgers or snooty ladies. Like Temple and Bobby Breen, most of her movies were short musicals about orphans who triumph over those who would tear them away from the right quirky family. Rita Cansino was making her fourth film, and was a year away from changing her name to Rita Hayworth and becoming one of the most beloved stars of the 1940's and 50's. How well do they work together in this story of an immigrant girl who comes to the US and makes her way among Russians and the Long Island elite? Let's begin on the boat, as Tamara Petrovich (Hayworth) dances for the crowds going to America, and find out...
The Story: Tamara is looking after eight-year-old Paddy O'Day (Withers) on her way to meet her mother, a cook in a wealthy household. After they arrive at Ellis Island, Paddy's told that her mother is very sick, and she'll be sent back to Ireland. She runs away from the orphanage there and goes to New York in search of her mother. She doesn't find out until she makes it to Long Island that her mother has died. Dora the kindly maid (Darwell) and the stuffy butler Benton (Russell Simpson) agree to keep her there and hide her from the immigration authorities.
The house belongs to two spoiled and fretful old maids. They live with their shy son Roy (Tomlin), who's only interest is the rare stuffed birds he collects. He first encounters Paddy when her dog Tim chases his aunts' cat and they hide in his room. Roy is taken with her and doesn't rat her out when her dog chews one of his birds. Tamara and her brother Mischa (George Givot) come looking for Paddy. Not only does he agree that she should stay with them, but Mischa talks Roy into becoming a partner in his Russian-themed nightclub. His aunts are shocked when they come home to find their nephew enjoying his life with vodka and real birds, and decide for one and for all to get rid of the immigrant menaces that disrupted their household.
The Song and Dance: I really like Withers. I think I like her even more than Temple. Talk about a spunky kid. She has no trouble beating up a boy in New York who picked on her and Tim, or telling the aunts off for being spiteful old biddies. There's some nice dancing, too, via a young Rita Hayworth in her fourth film. Gentle Darwell as the soft-hearted cook, Vera Lewis and Louise Carter as the obnoxious aunts who can't understand why anyone who is different than them could be happy, and Francis Ford as good natured Officer McGuire also come off well. Some nice directing touches for what's more-or-less a B musical, too, including a well-done montage of Paddy being overwhelmed by the noise and sights of the Big Apple.
Favorite Number: We open with Hayworth doing a fast and complicated Russian dance to a sprightly instrumental balalaika tune. Withers sings "Keep That Twinkle In Your Eye" three times, after Hayworth does her number on the boat, briefly later that night when she goes to sleep dreaming of America, and in the finale after she's found her family. Tomlin's big number is him admitting how he's "Changing Ambitions" for his Russian beauty.
Withers and Hayworth both get big chorus numbers in the nightclub near the end. Withers does "I Like a Balalaika" with the male chorus as they play the title stringed guitar for her. Hayworth gets her own big chorus routine as she wonders "Which Is Which," and which handsome Russian suitor she wants.
What I Don't Like: Too bad the story is sticky melodrama only a notch above Temple and Breen's movies. This is also a good time to discuss Tomlin. He was a popular songwriter and orchestra leader in this time period; some of his songs are still performed today. He also occasionally appeared in movies...and while he was charming, he was also bland, especially compared to feisty Withers. He's more believable as a reclusive bird scholar than a guy with a mustache telling his aunts to live it up. (In fact, he was a geology scholar in real life and would go on to own an oil company later in his career.)
The Big Finale: If all of Withers' child star vehicles are as much fun as this one, I'm going to look for more of them. Highly recommended for fans of 30's musicals or the films of other child stars of this period like Temple, Breen, or Deanna Durbin.
Home Media: Currently out of print on the 20th Century Fox Cinema Archives. You're better off looking for this one used.
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