Review of Kiss the Boys Goodbye

I caught up with this entry the best part of eighty years after its initial release. In my case the selling points were two great songs - Sand In My Shoes plus the title song - by Victor Schertzinger - who also directed - and Johnny Mercer but as someone steeped in vintage showbusiness I found a lot to savour despite a less than perfect print. Not least was a third number, That's How I Got My Start, previously unknown to me but in 1941 the cognoscenti would have recalled that the unknown Mary Martin actually got her own start in Cole Porter's Broadway show Leave It To Me when she performed a mild striptease to My Heart Belongs To Daddy three years earlier. Johnny Mercer's clever lyric has her performing another striptease in a sophisticated in-joke. The main thrust of the plot - adapted from Clare Booth's satire on the hype surrounding the nationwide search for an actress to play Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With The Wind and whilst we lose the bulk of Booth's acid dialogue we gain a fine score.