On paper - it was made by Grand National, a Poverty Row outfit, the female lead made only two movies before calling it a day - this doesn't have too much going for it, unless you throw in Jimmy Cagney as leading man and hyphenate Victor Schertzinger as director/composer. It was made in 1937 which makes it roughly contemporaneous with both Stand-In and A Star Is Born, two other films that took swipes at Hollywood. Cagney is reasonably effective as a band-leader in the East who is tapped by Hollywood and goes to the coast to make a movie. Evelyn Daw, who made only one other picture the following year, is the singer with the band albeit not too convincing as she was an opera singer rather than a band vocalist. Nevertheless Cagney marries her and then finds out that a clause in his contract prevents him from marrying. YEAH, that old chestnut. It is, on the whole, reasonably entertaining and Schertzinger's score is pleasant if not exactly the stuff that Standards are made of.
Review of Something to Sing About
