This highly enjoyable sequel to "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" (and according to Hollywood legend, the inspiration for "Xanadou") is a colorful musical that gave Rita a chance to escape from the "Gilda" image created the year before. The seemingly haughty goddess Terpsicore goes "down to earth" with "oh-dear" angel Edward Everett Horton at head angel Roland Culver's request to supposedly stop a show about the muses of Mount Ponassus from being ridiculed in the public's eye. There, she takes on the leading role of the show (replacing disgruntled leading lady Adele Jergens) and gives producer Larry Parks a very hard time. When she finds human emotions and falls in love with him, realizing that he has laid his life on the line for this project, she decides to follow his rules and the show goes on. But after opening night, she has to honor her promise to the angels, which finds her emotionally distressed as she goes from being a Broadway diva to an unable to cry muse once again.
When Rita Hayworth smiles, men are transfixed by her beauty. Her long ravishing red hair, photographed to the max here, adds to her beauty. She can sing, dance, act, even charm the socks off the director in spite of being out to sabotage him. She wants to make the show "respectable" at first, but allows her emotions to take over her actions later on. Rita was Columbia's jewel in the crown by this time, and no expense was spared to make her a film goddess to rival the Greek one she portrays. Along for the ride are two hold-overs from "Here Comes Mr. Jordan"-EE Horton and agent Max (James Gleason). Mr. Gleason's character is more of a comical buffoon here than he was in the original film, walking through a moving set door at one point and becoming very befuddled by still being inside the theater. Roland Culver replaces Claude Rains as Mr. Jordan, and is acceptable, but no one can truly replace Mr. Rains in talent and on-screen magnetism.
Larry Parks ("The Jolson Story") is fine as the love interest, not sounding at all like Al Jolson here when he sings. Marc Platt, already a well-respected Broadway hoofer, does a fine job in the dance sequences, but in his conflict backstage with Hayworth, there is never any doubt who would come out the victor if Hayworth hadn't agreed to change her plans. He comes off more as an annoying sidekick to Parks due to his stiff acting. As for the musical numbers, the lyrics aren't always the greatest, even though the bad lyrics of the opening song, "For instance take a chick like me, they call me Terpsiquore", are meant to be parody. The bigamy song is probably the worst number, but "People Have More Fun" (set in New York's Gramercy Park) is fun, and "Let's Stay Young Forever" is very pretty. Look for William Frawley of "I Love Lucy" as the investigator questioning Gleason. While not as good as the two other big color musicals that year ("Mother Wore Tights" and "Good News"), it isn't as bad as critics wrote. I've seen it over 10 times in the past 30 years and enjoy it more than a lot of movies I saw as a child, then re-visited several times as an adult.
PS-Anybody know where I can get a copy of the song they mention, "Who hit Nellie in the belly with a flounder?"
When Rita Hayworth smiles, men are transfixed by her beauty. Her long ravishing red hair, photographed to the max here, adds to her beauty. She can sing, dance, act, even charm the socks off the director in spite of being out to sabotage him. She wants to make the show "respectable" at first, but allows her emotions to take over her actions later on. Rita was Columbia's jewel in the crown by this time, and no expense was spared to make her a film goddess to rival the Greek one she portrays. Along for the ride are two hold-overs from "Here Comes Mr. Jordan"-EE Horton and agent Max (James Gleason). Mr. Gleason's character is more of a comical buffoon here than he was in the original film, walking through a moving set door at one point and becoming very befuddled by still being inside the theater. Roland Culver replaces Claude Rains as Mr. Jordan, and is acceptable, but no one can truly replace Mr. Rains in talent and on-screen magnetism.
Larry Parks ("The Jolson Story") is fine as the love interest, not sounding at all like Al Jolson here when he sings. Marc Platt, already a well-respected Broadway hoofer, does a fine job in the dance sequences, but in his conflict backstage with Hayworth, there is never any doubt who would come out the victor if Hayworth hadn't agreed to change her plans. He comes off more as an annoying sidekick to Parks due to his stiff acting. As for the musical numbers, the lyrics aren't always the greatest, even though the bad lyrics of the opening song, "For instance take a chick like me, they call me Terpsiquore", are meant to be parody. The bigamy song is probably the worst number, but "People Have More Fun" (set in New York's Gramercy Park) is fun, and "Let's Stay Young Forever" is very pretty. Look for William Frawley of "I Love Lucy" as the investigator questioning Gleason. While not as good as the two other big color musicals that year ("Mother Wore Tights" and "Good News"), it isn't as bad as critics wrote. I've seen it over 10 times in the past 30 years and enjoy it more than a lot of movies I saw as a child, then re-visited several times as an adult.
PS-Anybody know where I can get a copy of the song they mention, "Who hit Nellie in the belly with a flounder?"