Cult Flops - Something to Sing About

Grand National Pictures, 1937

Starring James Cagney, Evelyn Daw, William Frawley, and Gene Lockhart

Directed by Victor Schertzinger

Music and Lyrics by Victor Schlesinger

I Go Pogo was far from the only independent movie that ran into trouble with distributors. Grand National Pictures began in 1936 as an alternative to the many B-level Poverty Row studios. Hiring James Cagney, who was then feuding with his usual home-base Warner Bros, was considered a great coup for them. They threw Cagney into two lavish (for them) films, of which this is the second. It's also Cagney's second time singing and dancing on-screen. He started out as a hoofer on Broadway and still considered himself to more-or-less be one. How does Cagney's second foray into musicals after Footlight Parade look nowadays? Let's join Terry Rooney (Cagney) and his band at their latest nightclub and radio gig and find out...

The Story: Terry is off to Hollywood to make movies with studio owner B.O Regan (Lockhart). He leaves his band and his fiancee Rita (Daw) behind, promising to return. Terry doesn't find his time in Hollywood easy. Fearing his new discovery getting a big head, Regan has ordered his people not to praise Terry in any way. This culminates in an onscreen fist fight that turns too real for Terry's liking. He leaves and goes back to the band, marrying Rita. When he returns, he discovers that the movie has been released and was a huge success. 

The studio already has his second movie planned. They convince him to keep his marriage silent. Studio publicist Hank Meyers (Frawley) plants news stories claiming Terry and actress Stephanie Hajos (Mona Barrie) are an item. Terry is kept in Hollywood for so long dealing with all this and his new contract, Rita feels neglected and returns to the band. Terry has to finally take control of both his careers and prove his marriage to Rita is more important to him than any movie.

The Song and Dance: And "dance" is the real operative word here. We do get to see Cagney strut his stuff, including three solo dances. Great cast for what amounts to a B-pick here, too. Frawley and Lockhart are hilarious as the publicist who thinks he can drum up interest no matter what the real story is, and the studio head who worries that his new discovery will get too big for him to handle.

The Numbers: We open over the credits and in the first few minutes with Rita performing the title song. Terry gives us his first dance sequence, tapping in a rather Fred Astaire-like top hat, white tie, and tails across the nightclub floor. His second instrumental dance number is as he's about to leave for Hollywood. He shows off for Rita and the band, this time in a simpler suit and bucket hat, even swinging an amused Rita around. Rita and the band perform their new ballad "Right or Wrong" over the phone for Terry. 

Terry sings "Any Old Love" with a bevy of ladies in the movie-within-the-movie. His third solo is dancing with two officers (Cagney's real-life partners and teachers Johnny Boyle and Hartland Dixon) on the tramp steamer that takes him and Rita to the South Seas for their honeymoon. Rita sings "Out of the Blue" when she rejoins the band on the East Coast. She sings "Loving You" and reprises "Right or Wrong" at the nightclub in the finale. "Loving You" also gives us one last dance from Terry.

Trivia: Grand National threw everything they had into their Cagney pictures...too much, as it turned out. This and the comedy Great Guy were too lavish for their audiences. Between that, the difficulties a newly-formed company had bucking the studio system of the time, and no breakout hits in the so-so score, Sing About wound up a flop...and took down Grand National with it. Grand National closed their doors in 1940. Warner Bros ended up buying Cagney's contract and the next movie Grand National had intended to make with him, Angels With Dirty Faces. 

What I Don't Like: Cagney, his dances, and the decent cast are pretty much the only things of interest here. Otherwise, it's pretty obvious this was a low-budget B-film from the late 30's. As mentioned, the songs are dull, the story perfunctory, the Hollywood satire toothless. This isn't anything you haven't seen in countless spoofs of the movies going back to the silent era, and this does nothing really new with it other than the idea of Terry walking out.

The Big Finale: Only for the most devoted fans of Cagney and the cast. 

Home Media: This is in the public domain, so it's easy to find anywhere in most formats. It's currently streaming on Tubi with commercials. 

DVD

Tubi

Musical Documentaries - That's Dancing!

MGM, 1985

Hosted by Gene Kelly, Ray Bolger, Liza Minnelli, Sammy Davis Jr, and many others

Directed by Jack Haley Jr.

Music and Lyrics by various

When I was six, this used to appear with some frequency on cable. It gave me my first glimpse of Shirley Temple, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Gene Kelly, and ballet, and I was entranced. It's one of several older films and more recent musicals I saw as a child that helped make me the musical film fan I am today. How does this summation of the history of dance on the big screen look nowadays, with most of these films easily found on home media and no longer limited to cable showings and rare big-screen revivals? Let's start with a man who certainly knows something about dance on-screen, Gene Kelly, as he explains to us about primitive dance around the world, and find out...

The Story: Some of the most popular musical stars and dancers to ever appear on the big screen relate to us the history of dance via segments from movies made by MGM...and for once, other studios as well.

Kelly discusses the origins of filmed dance, dance on the silent screen, and how Busby Berkley's surreal choreography revolutionized chorus numbers on film.

Sammy Davis Jr. talks about solo and couple dance on film, via Fred Astaire, who insisted on the camera remaining on his full figure while he danced and his frequent partner Ginger Rogers. He also goes into Shirley Temple, whose mixed-race tap routines with Bill Robinson broke barriers in the 30's, Robinson's graceful style as a solo act in shorts, and solo stars Eleanor Powell and Ray Bolger and the amazing duo the Nicholas Brothers. 

Russian ballet star Mikhail Baryshnikov gives us the history of ballet on film, from Anna Palova on the silent screen to major international ballet greats of the 60's and 70's Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn, as well as screen ballerinas Vera Zorina and Moira Shearer. 

Liza Minelli discusses screen adaptations of classic Broadway dance routines, from James Cagney demonstrating what George M Cohan's style looked like in Yankee Doodle Dandy to the explosive "Cool" from the original 1961 West Side Story. 

Ray Bolger gives us the (then) future of dance on the screen, including the "What a Feeling!" finale of Flashdance and Michael Jackson's influential and much-parodied "Beat It" music video. 

The Song and Dance: If That's Dancing does one thing right, it's expanding its net to include a truly wide variety of dance...including acknowledging that dancers came from studios other than MGM. We get the Yankee Doodle Dandy and Busby Berkley footage from Warners, the Shirley Temple/Bill Robinson, Nicholas Brothers, and Rogers and Hammerstein dances from 20th Century Fox, Universal's release of Sweet Charity, Flashdance from Paramount, The Red Shoes from England, and the MTV Michael Jackson footage. We also get our first glimpse of cut songs in an incredible extension of Bolger's "If I Only Had a Brain" solo from The Wizard of Oz. They even wrote two original songs. It's also nice to see sequences from musicals made after the 50's as the hosts point out that dance on the screen continues to evolve. There's also the extremely rare footage of early silent dancers, some of it going far back as 1897. 

Favorite Number: As mentioned, we begin with footage, some of it rare, of primitive dances from around the globe, from African tribal ritual to native dances in Mexico and China. Of the Busby Berkley routines shown here, none continue to amaze more than the Oscar-winning "Lullaby of Broadway" from Gold Diggers of 1935, with its thousands of tap dancers who all manage to move in perfect unison. 

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers have a lot more fun with two of their best routines, the romantic "Night and Day" from The Gay Divorcee and comic "Pick Yourself Up" from Swing Time. A decidedly different duo, Shirley Temple and Bill Robison, show off their "Organ Grinder's Swing" from The Littlest Rebel. Robison goes it alone and shows off his light-as-air footwork in two numbers from the short King for a Day. A very young Sammy Davis Jr. gets in on his own short, Rufus Jones for President, and gives us a delightful and adorable tap routine. Fred goes it solo as well with "I Won't Dance" from Roberta and later, "A Shine On Your Shoes," making brilliant use of an arcade on Broadway in The Band Wagon. Eleanor Powell manages to combine tap and graceful hula and make it work in the peculiar "Hola E Pae" from Honolulu. 

Vera Zorina demonstrates grace of a different sort with Charles Laskey in "La Princesse Zenobia Ballet" from On Your Toes. Delicate Moira Shearer is haunted by her scarlet footwear, which stands out like a beacon in the sherbet tones of The Red Shoes. Ray Bolger does death-defying leaps after crows (with the help of MGM's special effects department) in a delightful extension of his "If I Only Had a Brain" from The Wizard of Oz. 

Astaire this time joins an unusually tough Jane Powell for the colorful tropical chorus routine "I Left My Hat In Hati" from Royal Wedding. Anne Miller joins Bob Fosse, Bobby Van, and the late Tommy Rall for their big tap number "Tom Dick and Harry" from Kiss Me Kate. We get a glimpse at a more spontaneous chorus routine with the teens dancing in the streets and stopping traffic to the tune of the Oscar-winning title song from Fame. The dancers of the original West Side Story show why they're still "Cool" with their stylized, finger-snapping dance moves. "Cool" inspired much of Michael Jackson's "Beat It"; song and video were smash hits in 1983, and we get to see why here, with their equally dramatic moves. We also get Kim Carnes' pop song "Invitation to Dance" over the end credits. 

Trivia: The use of the rare Ray Bolger/Wizard of Oz footage was so well-received, it inspired MGM to dig in its vaults for more deleted numbers to use in That's Entertainment III a decade later. 

Final film appearance of Ray Bolger. 

Bolger and Minnelli's sequences were to have been much longer and feature more numbers from other studios, but many were dropped in the interest of time and expense, as was the sequence with Fred and Ginger. Which brings me to...

What I Don't Like: It's pretty obvious that MGM chopped this up since before release. There's even less rhyme and reason to this than there is to the Kelly and Astaire-hosted That's Entertainment Part 2. Liza Minnelli's segment from Cabaret was dropped, leaving her as the only host without a dance routine in the film and making many audiences wonder what she's doing there. Many of the MGM numbers seem to be scraping the bottom of the barrel after three films and makes you really wish the other studios had cooperated more. 

There's problems with the other hosts, too. Their narration is just as stiff as the first That's Entertainment film, and mostly of interest to real dance aficionados. Casual audiences will likely be bored and wish they'd get out of the way and let the footage speak for itself. Baryshnikov in particular lacks the charm and intensity he usually shows when dancing. (And he's not helped by his thick Russian accent.) The five hosts often seem spread too thin as well, with Davis Jr. and Kelly covering more than half the film. 

Let's talk about that final "modern" segment. Breakdancing was a huge fad in 1985, but it's barely remembered today by anyone but fans of 80's dance. I understand they wanted to convey the evolution of dance, from primitive times to modern times, but the emphasis on 80's fads like breakdancing and music videos dates this in a way the That's Entertainment films, with their use of mostly older footage, manages to avoid. 

The Big Finale: Mainly of interest to fans of dance on the screen, dance history, or the That's Entertainment documentary series. 

Home Media: Finally got its first solo release on Warner Archive DVD in October 2020; can be found easily for streaming as well. 

DVD

Amazon Prime

Footlight Parade

Warner Bros, 1933
Starring James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, and Dick Powell
Directed by Lloyd Bacon; Musical Numbers Directed by Busby Berkeley
Music by Harry Warren and others; Lyrics by Al Dubin and others

This is the last of the three backstage movies Warners put out in 1933 that redefined the film musical. By this point, Warners already typecast Cagney as a gangster. Wishing to show off his other talents, he campaigned hard for the role of Chester Kent, the nervy stage producer in their newest extravaganza. In what other ways does this film differ from the earlier 42nd Street and Gold Diggers of 1933? Let's head to a theater in New York...a movie theater...and find out...

The Story: With Broadway on the rocks during the Great Depression, Chester switches to creating "prologues," live musical numbers that played before films in larger houses. He's under pressure from his partners to come up with ideas for dozens of numbers, so they can sell them to major theater chains and skim off the profits. There's a spy in his company who keeps selling off his ideas to a rival, his choreographer (Frank McHugh) does nothing but whine, and the woman he hires to help him (Vivian Rich) is a gold-digger who is only interested in his money. There's also the secretary (Keeler) who switches to dancing and the singer (Powell) who was initially hired because he's the "protege" of the producer's wife but asks to become an assistant.

Chester's partners manage to get him a contract with the Apolinaris theater circuit, just as they reveal their stealing and Chester's ex-wife Cynthia (Renee Whitney) tries to blackmail him. Fed up with the espionage, Chester sequesters all performers and personnel in the studio for three days while they work on a trio of huge numbers to impress Mr. Apolinaris (Paul Porcasi). Chester's secretary Nan (Blondell) looks for the spy...and wishes her boss would see her as more than a helpmate.

The Song and Dance: The unique setting and great cast makes this my personal favorite of the trio of hit Warners musicals from 1933. Cagney and his rapid-fire rhythm assures that this remains fast-paced and zesty, with racy pre-Code zingers flying fast and furious from just about everyone. Blondell in particular gets some choice snark at the pretentious Dodd. Even Keeler and Powell come off well (and a tad more adult) as the tart office girl who decides she'd rather be back onstage and the juvenile who isn't as "kept" as she thinks.

Favorite Number: "Sittin' On a Backyard Fence" has Keeler and the chorus girls in cat suits to prowl around the neighborhood and chase frisky mouse Billy Barty. As strange as it seems to have women doing dance steps in cat suits, it still looks less creepy than last year's Cats. "Shanghai Lil" brings Cagney in in what starts as the dramatic tale of a sailor looking for the Chinese girl he loves and ends as a patriotic tribute, with soldiers making eagle formations.

By far the most famous song from this one is "By a Waterfall." What starts as a slightly syrupy romantic rendezvous with Keeler and Powell turns into a massive cascade of hundreds of women in bathing suits following formations and becoming a human waterfall on a giant cake. It likely inspired much of Berkeley's work on Esther Williams' even bigger vehicles in the 1950's.

What I Don't Like: Other than "By a Waterfall," the music isn't quite as memorable as in the previous films. "Honeymoon Hotel" is an imitation "Shuffle Off to Buffalo" and goes on for way too long, and "Shanghai Lil" is marred by Asian stereotypes and the fact that Keeler is neither Asian, nor the temptress type. While not a bad dancer, she's not at Cagney's level and has a hard time keeping up with him during their duet. 

Not to mention, there's so much going on and so many plot lines that turn up in such a short time, many people may have a hard time just trying to figure out who's who and what's going on.

The Big Finale: If you love Cagney or the lavish backstage musicals of the 1930's, this is one parade you'll absolutely want to join.

Home Media: It was just re-released on DVD via the Warner Archives last month and is easy to find on streaming as well.

DVD
Amazon Prime

Happy 4th of July! - Yankee Doodle Dandy

Warner Bros, 1942
Starring James Cagney, Walter Huston, Joan Leslie, and Richard Whorf
Directed by Michael Curtiz
Music and Lyrics by George M. Cohan

I couldn't think of a better way to end our All-American Weekdays than with this salute to one America's most patriotic songwriters. The title song, "You're a Grand Old Flag," and "Give My Regards to Broadway" remain popular to this day. When I was in kindergarten, we started off the day by singing "You're a Grand Old Flag." My mother used to put this on every 4th of July either right before or after the fireworks. Is it worth being a part of your holiday barbecue? Let's head to the Music Box Theatre in New York, where Cohan (Cagney) is performing in one of his last shows, and find out...

The Story: Called to the President (Captain Jack Young) to receive a Congressional Gold Medal, Cohan ends up relating his life story. Born on the 4th of July to vaudevillians Jerry (Huston) and Nellie (Rosemary DeCamp) Cohan, he and later on his little sister Josie (Jeanne Cagney) join the act as soon as they're able. They travel from town to town, performing wherever there's a theater. George is eager to show his stuff, but his ego often gets them into trouble, whether it's playing "Peck's Bad Boy" as a child and getting too into his role, or pushing his girlfriend Mary (Leslie) and his music to an uninterested vaudeville producer as an adult.

 He finally leaves the act, joining with producer Sam Harris (Whorf) to hawk their songs to producers. They do manage to find a taker in producer Schwab (SK Sakall). George's show Little Johnny Jones is a huge hit, enough to bring back his family to appear in his next show. He even manages to get huge star Faye Templeton (Irene Manning) to appear in one of his shows. She does get to sing the ballad he wrote for Mary, "Mary's a Grand Old Name," but Mary and George are the ones who wed.

George keeps writing hits, but things are changing. His parents and sister retire, then pass away. He writes a huge hit during World War I, "Over There," then finds himself falling out of favor with the public during the more cynical 20's. After a trip around the world, he settles down on the farm with Mary...but it takes a group of teens and their attitudes and lack of recognition to convince him to make one final show.

The Song and Dance: After Pearl Harbor happened during filming, the cast and crew set out to make the most patriotic musical they could...and they certainly succeeded. Cagney won an Oscar for his performance as the cocky, charming theatrical jack-of-all-trade. His perpetual energy fuels the entire film, especially in the first half, when he and his family are struggling and he's trying to prove to Broadway that some Irish kid can dominate the stage. Huston is warm and funny as his beloved father; Leslie's lovely as his sweet and sensible Mary. Jeanne Cagney, Cagney's real-life sister, is cute as a button as Josie.

Favorite Number: Even where the biography is pure fiction, the numbers are pretty close to the mark. The staging of Little Johnny Jones is pretty accurate to the time, including the flare going up over the boat during "Give My Regards to Broadway." Likewise, Cagney's "Off the Record" in the finale is said to be spot-on. Cagney and Leslie are charming together in their duet to impress a pair of producers, "Harrigan." "Grand Old Flag" may be the most patriotic musical number ever committed to film, with its marching everyday Americans, Civil War veterans, and Huston and DeCamp dressed as no less than Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty.

Trivia: James Cagney actually disliked Cohan because he sided with the producers during the 1919 Equity strike. He agreed to play him because he had been accused of being a communist and needed to make something really patriotic to improve his image. This did it. The movie was a smash, the second-biggest hit of 1942 after MGM's Mrs. Miniver, and Warner Bros' biggest money-maker of the year.

Along with Best Actor for Cagney, it won Best Score of Musical and Best Sound Recording.

That little dance Cagney does going down the stairs after getting his medal wasn't originally in the script. He devised it right before the scene started shooting.

That's Eddie Foy Jr. playing his father in a short sequence where he comments on Cohan's many abilities. Cagney would repay the favor by playing Cohan in the 1955 film biography of Foy and his family, The Seven Little Foys.

There would be a somewhat more accurate Broadway stage version of Cohan's life in 1968 with Joel Gray as George, George M!

What I Don't Like: Cohan himself was a consultant on this movie, and he saw to it that very little that was unflattering got in there. Mary is a condensed version of his two wives Ethel and Agnes. His mother died well before his father. Popularity was a flop...in 1906, not 1915, when the Lusitania was sunk. There's no reference to his dust-ups with Equity in 1919 that soured him on directing for the rest of his life.

The Big Finale: A perfect cast and terrific, period-accurate numbers make all the difference and keep this from feeling as bland as other musical biographies of this period. If you love Cagney or Cohan or just want a blast of Americana, this his highly recommended.

Home Media: The 2-disc Special Edition I have was just re-released this year as part of the Warner Archives, who also put out the Blu-Ray. It's also easily found on several streaming companies.

DVD
DVD - 5 Film Collection: Musicals
Blu-Ray
Amazon Prime

A Salute to Doris Day - Love Me or Leave Me

MGM, 1955
Starring Doris Day, James Cagney, Cameron Mitchell, and Robert Keith
Directed by Charles Vidor
Music by Nicholas Brodzsky and others; Lyrics by Sammy Cahn and others

First of all, this is my last review for the next week and a half. I'll be on vacation from tomorrow through Thursday, May 23rd, which is when regular reviews will resume.

Though she's best-known for her comedies, Day could be a credible dramatic actress when called on to be. Probably her best-known foray into drama was this mid-50's hit, one of her two pairings with James Cagney. This dark gangster musical is unusual territory for MGM, who usually preferred their musicals on the fluffy side. The gamble paid off - it won Best Writing at the Oscars and received a truckload of good reviews for Cagney and Day. Let's head to a dance hall in Chicago during the Roaring 20's to see if it's worthy of that acclaim...

The Story: Ruth Etting (Day) may work in a dance hall, but she has every intention of going places. She catches the eye of Chicago big shot Martin "The Gimp" Snyder (Cagney) when she kicks a customer who's getting fresh. He's smitten with her and promises that he'll get her into the big time. He starts with pushing her into a nightclub act, then a stage show when the regular act gets drunk. He wants her to go to Miami with him, but she insists she's not anyone's  plaything and declines. He's initially angry, but eventually gets her and her loyal pianist Johnny Alderman (Mitchell) first a radio show of her own, then a spot in the Ziegfeld Follies. Ruth may be doing well, but Snyder isn't. Each move takes him further and further away from his accustomed turf, and puts Ruth's career further out of his control.

She marries him out of gratitude, even though she doesn't love him. It turns out to be a mistake. He becomes increasingly jealous and violent as he micromanages every aspect of her life and career, from her radio show to her recordings. Tired of being told he's riding her success, he opens his own nightclub. She's making movies in Hollywood and is renewing her feelings for Johnny, who returns them. Martin doesn't like this at all...and the resulting shooting and scandal would damage Etting's career and make her realize that, no matter how much she appreciates what Martin did for her, she can't live with his abuse anymore.

The Song and Dance: This is familiar turf for Cagney, one of his last gangster roles...but who knew Day could be this tough? She matches him snarl for snarl in what's probably one of her best performances as the singer who will do anything to further her career. Cagney's just as good as the gangster who refuses to admit that he's in over his head in show business. Keith's also excellent as Snyder's friend and Etting's agent Bernie Loomis.

MGM spared no expense on this one. The costumes are gorgeous, especially early-on, when they're still running with the twenties flapper aesthetic. The movie was shot in Cinemascope, and it looks great.

Favorite Number: Day's famous "Shakin' the Blues Away," the sole chorus number, really benefits from the wider screen, with wind machines and chorus boys in tuxes and canes flanking Day. Her other songs are mostly sung behind a microphone or a piano. "Ten Cents a Dance" was an Etting staple, and Day knocks it out of the park in the other major stage number. Her "I'll Never Stop Loving You" (which was Oscar-nominated) gets a tender run-through late in the film, when she's realized how much she loves Johnny.

Trivia: Spencer Tracy was originally going to play Martin, but turned down the role. Ava Gardner and Jane Russell were considered for Etting until Cagney suggested Day.

Unlike earlier singer biographies such as Lillian Russell, this one at least somewhat sticks to the facts. Etting really did marry Snyder to further her career, and she really was a popular singer in the late 20's and early 30's who appeared briefly in the Ziegfeld Follies, had her own radio show, and recorded dozens of hits. Snyder really did control her career that much, even starting fights and pulling pranks backstage at her shows.

The shooting scandal, however, was even nastier than what they depicted here. Johnny was married with children at the time, and Martin actually threatened them along with him. His wife even sued Etting for damages - it was dropped in 1939. Etting married Johnny after he recovered, and they happily retired to Colorado Springs for the rest of their lives.

What' I Don't Like: Despite the happy ending, this is not a feel-good movie. Those who are expecting Day's usual fizzy comedies will likely be baffled. These are not the nicest people, even Etting, and some harrowing scenes of verbal and physical abuse makes it hard to watch occasionally towards the end.

The Big Finale: If you're looking for a different Day or are a fan of her, Cagney, or gangster tales, you'll want to give this one a try.

Home Media: As one of Day's biggest hit musicals, this is easily found on all formats; the Blu-Ray is available from the Warner Archives.

DVD
Blu-Ray
Amazon Prime