There are four terrific reasons to see this boring musical: 1: Fred Astaire dancing Puttin On The Ritz; 2: Fred Astaire in the boogie woogie version of Heatwave; 3: The incredible Technicolor' and 4: The production values of this massive Paramount nightclub musical. There are three reasons the film repeatedly falls as flat as a tack in-between: 1: Bing Crosby...ugh. 2: a leading lady who was really a leaden lady in Joan Caulfield whose character seemed to have a personality bypass... and 3: the normally effervescent campy Billy de Wolfe who seemed to be Bing's secret lover in this film, following him about from nightclub to nightclub and performing possibly the most embarrassing and tedious female impersonation act last century: his Mrs Murgatroyd nonsense which stops the film cold at a point when it is actually becoming tedious. Thank god Fred dances and tosses himself off a bridge not long after that. At 104 minutes and crammed with about 30 Irving Berlin songs, several big dance sequences and several elaborate and very lavish nightclub sets, BLUE SKIES annoyingly becomes dull and exasperating when Bing Crosby appears to warble, look lost and attempt some overextended dance moves. I find him just so wet. I know he had a massive following and in the crowded cinema where I saw it today there were even ancient Bing Crosby fan club members (!!!) who called themselves The Bing-Gang ............ and they sat there goggle eyed at the screen at this soppy percolation in a suit as he moaned his way through too many songs. If you get the DVD for home enjoyment, just go straight to the two dynamite Astaire numbers applauded above and watch them for 104 minutes, thus saving yourself many trips to the fridge which you will feel compelled to make any other time you get a whiff of Bing.
Review of Blue Skies
