Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Plantiana Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Maidexpl Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

edwagreen Damon Runyon like yarn with the wealthy coming to bat for the downtrodden at the very end.A just released Leo Gorcey, acting like Brooklyn all the way, comes upon Virginia Wiedler and her father. The latter has had his music stolen from him while he had been imprisoned. The gang has to find a way to turn the tables on the crooked theatrical producer.Playing his usual gangster self, Sheldon Leonard provides help for the group in order to get out of his own predicament.The highlight of the film is when the theater patrons are kidnapped so that they can see the group put on the show with the stolen music. As a society matron, Margaret Dumont provides hilarity. Just too bad that she, Leonard and Connie Gilchrist, as a social worker aren't used more.Very entertaining music with that patriotic ending just great.

dplomin This is such an interesting film, if as the previous comments attest to, some details that even I never knew, IE: The finale that was originally part of the WPA (ask kids today what THAT was!) and the Federal Theater Project's contribution to the Depression. What I found interesting/sad/macabre, was how many of the young actors in that film met an early demise. On the IMDb site itself:1)Virginia Weidler: Heart attack, age 412)Larry Nunn: Self inflicted gun shot wound, age 493)Ray McDonald: Death by choking on food in hotel room, age 344)Ben Carter, age 355)Leo Gorcey: Liver failure, age 536)Douglas McPhail: poison, after 1st failed suicide attempt,age 307)Rags Ragland: uremic poisoning, age 408)Darla Hood: died in North Hollywood following a relatively minoroperation of acute hepatitis under "mysteriouscircumstances", age 479)Richard Haydel, age 22 Was this film cursed? Or did actors die quicker then?

david-1976 It's been suggested that the ending of "Born to Sing" was some sort of jingoistic war- promoting effort spliced on the end of this film--and it certainly was badly spliced, especially since we are not shown its effect on the audience, which up until the end has been a living part of the film. It should be said, though, that the piece "Ballad for Americans" which concludes the film actually was written for a WPA Theatre production, "Sing for Your Supper," in 1939. This show, 18 months in rehearsal, brought about the end of WPA's "Federal Theatre Project" and never reached much of an audience."Ballad for Americans," though, was written by John Latouche and Earl Robinson, who later produced one of the best American operas, "The Ballad of Baby Doe." The "Ballad for Americans" was introduced on radio by Paul Robeson, who recorded it as did Bing Crosby, and both recordings were best-sellers. The piece was actually performed at the 1940 Republican AND American Communist Party Conventions, and remained in the repertoire through the 1960's. The piece seems rather dated and jingoistic today, though oddly enough it was considered pretty left-wing at the time! I've always had a soft spot for it, as did my high school choir director. The shouted/spoken parts of the piece were a popular device of the time, another practice that lingered through the 1960's in various guises. I think that its inclusion in the film was meant to show just what a fine composer the Virginia Weidler character's father (Henry O'Neill) was (although it stretches the imagine a bit to think that in a couple of evenings Virginia could play it out a few notes at a time on the harmonica and have it transposed by an eight-year-old kid ("Mozart"--Richard Hall) who has to draw his own staff paper.) Unfortunately, we don't know whether it did that or not, because the film ends abruptly at the end of the piece--almost as if the production had run out of money so everybody went home.Actually, I think it was pretty spiffily staged by Busby Berkeley, in a way that is reminiscent of his "Forgotten Man" number at Warner's and in a way that recalls the Deco/Moderne style of much of WPA art.It should also be noted that Joe Yule is featured in a (very) minor role here at a time when his son, Mickey Rooney (AKA Joe, Jr.), was MGM's biggest meal ticket.

Neil Doyle Whatever points I give this one is strictly based on the talented DOUGLAS McPHAIL and his rich baritone singing the climactic number, "America". MGM obviously was grooming him for big time stardom that never came. He was a Nelson Eddy kind of baritone, stolid looking, rather humorless, but usually just given background roles in any of the studio's big films.Here at least he takes the spotlight in the film's final number, a rousing tribute to Americana. But what precedes this is strictly hokum, a "let's put on the show" routine accompanied by some gangster stuff led by SHELDON LEONARD who gets off some typical '40s tough guy remarks. ("I'm gonna put him in opera if I gotta buy the joint," he says of McPhail.) Another amusing and typical '40s moment has Leonard landing in the same police patrol wagon with a few of the show biz kids, including LEO GORCEY. Another youngster takes one look at his suit and says, "If you get the hot seat, can I have that suit?"VIRGINIA WEIDLER is totally wasted in the leading femme role as the daughter of a musician, but the cast is perked up by RAGS RAGLAND, MARGARET DUMONT, DARLA HOOD and especially young RAY McDONALD, who was a hoofer who ranked easily with Donald O'Connor as one of filmdom's best dancers.Summing up: Unfortunately, never rises above its B-picture material, except for the climactic song celebrating America.