Having issues finding a lyricist to write the words to his longs, composer Bing Crosby goes incognito. A series of troublesome encounters with lyricist Mary Martin ends up with them being partners with Martin unaware of his real identity. Martin, serious about her career, must take on a job as a nightclub singer, while Crosby returns to his country home to fix up an old riverboat, docked for years.
Martin's singing gives hope and question to the ironic fact that she never scored in movies, given four years to try and make it at Paramount before giving up and returning to Broadway where she had greater luck. Crosby is his easy going self as usual, dropping deadpan lines like a dog with a bone after realizing that nothing else remained to gnaw on.
Character actors such as sardonic Oscar Levant, earthy Charlie Grapewin, sour Charles Lane and grouchy William Frawley add greatly to the light hearted atmosphere, while Basil Rathbone is less of a villain than normal as the man whom Crosby has been ghost writing songs for. The music is pleasant yet unmemorable, but when Martin sings, she puts all the oomph she can into them, making me wonder how audience members must have gone ballistic when she sang "My Heart Belongs to Daddy". Not holding up as well as other 40's musicals, it's still pleasant if standard fare.
Martin's singing gives hope and question to the ironic fact that she never scored in movies, given four years to try and make it at Paramount before giving up and returning to Broadway where she had greater luck. Crosby is his easy going self as usual, dropping deadpan lines like a dog with a bone after realizing that nothing else remained to gnaw on.
Character actors such as sardonic Oscar Levant, earthy Charlie Grapewin, sour Charles Lane and grouchy William Frawley add greatly to the light hearted atmosphere, while Basil Rathbone is less of a villain than normal as the man whom Crosby has been ghost writing songs for. The music is pleasant yet unmemorable, but when Martin sings, she puts all the oomph she can into them, making me wonder how audience members must have gone ballistic when she sang "My Heart Belongs to Daddy". Not holding up as well as other 40's musicals, it's still pleasant if standard fare.