At Least It's Got Faye
14 March 2015
I guess I'm in a minority, but I found the results tepid, at best. The Ritz Brothers have no real act except to bounce around in tandem, and are more annoying than funny. Then too, the production numbers appear cut-rate, certainly not up to anything memorable. I kept hoping we'd get an eccentric styling from bandleader Louis Prima, but no such luck. Maybe he needed Keely Smith to play off of. The plot's boilerplate, but then who tunes into musicals for the plot. It's something about Faye finding her real place in show business, at the same time she and writer Ameche try to find a way to get together.

On the other hand, Faye's delightful, sparkling one minute, soulful the next. She really deserved better musical backup. Ameche's lively and a handsome foil for Faye. No wonder they were a natural movie twosome. Their first scene together in the spaghetti emporium is a peach. Too bad the remainder doesn't equal that initial scene. Then there's the amazonian Gypsy Rose Lee who could easily have stolen the movie against someone less compelling than Faye. Too bad Lee didn't make a career of movies; she would have made a heckuva villainess. Nonetheless, in my little book, the musical's mainly for fans of the great Alice Faye, and little more.
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