Noutions
Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .
Tedfoldol
everything you have heard about this movie is true.
SanEat
A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."
ksf-2
Silly antics, with some song and dance numbers tossed in. Nifty (Ray Bolger, just after doing the Wizard of Oz) does a fun, impressive number right at the start, "I'm in Good Shape". He and his co-horts are musicians in a restaurant, and they share an apartment too. Nifty meets up right off with Nina (Ann Shirley), who doesn't have a place to stay, so of course she moves in with them. As we are in the middle of WW II, and there was a major housing shortage, this would be OK, in spite of the film code being in full force by now. They keep bumping into Noodles, the crime boss, played by Jack Durant. The producers didn't spend much on the script here... its all pretty silly, but it kind of works as long as you don't take it too seriously. Nina thinks she can speak with foreign accents, so that comes in handy. Even Desi Arnaz gets caught up in the plot. According to wikipedia, this was only the third role for Desi, and he was on the musical soundtracks for all three of these roles. This about ten years before I Love Lucy. Its OK, but as we can see, it didn't win any awards. This film was just like watching one of Lucy's schemes gone wrong; maybe that's where Arnaz got the idea. Directed by Jack Hively, who also directed a bunch of "The Saint" movies.
Neil Doyle
What was RKO thinking? ANNE SHIRLEY, who couldn't sing (and whose dancing talent was negligible), was put into a few dismal musical comedies at RKO during the '40s, shortly before she retired from the screen. Martha Mears dubs her voice for a few not especially memorable songs. In fact, the only catchy number in the whole film is the "Boogie Woogie Conga" and it comes too late in the film to salvage it in any way.RAY BOLGER is the big star here, but even the great Bolger gets very little in the way of strutting his stuff as a hoofer--and the script, which pairs him with Anne Shirley as her romantic interest, has a hard time making them seem like a convincing couple.At least DESI ARNAZ is likable enough (with less accent than usual), and the reliable HENRY DANIELL is smoothly cast as a villain. But the script is fluff with barely a moment of reality written into it and nobody manages to look or act their best.A sad little musical easy to forget.
kmk-3
This is almost a shot-for-shot remake of the 1929 "Street Girl," which was equally cheerless but at least had better musical performances... Betty Compson played the violin and Jack Oakie shimmied in that one. But in the hurry to make movies during the war, they made the nimble Ray Bolger boring and whiny. Anne Shirley has great clothes for a homeless girl, and Desi Arnaz is both handsome and comprehensible in English, so you do wonder what happened to him by his "Lucy" days. This was on very late one night, so it was worth watching under those circumstances -- but otherwise, don't bother. This is a dead man's hand, indeed.
lzf0
This film isn't much and it doesn't make much sense. It is one of the few vehicles designed for comedian Ray Bolger. When MGM finally cast him as the Scarecrow, they got it right. (Bolger was the goofball, Haley was the worrier, Lahr was the cowardly clown, and Morgan was the inept con artist.) Well, Bolger is at his goofy best in this film. He does a routine as a tap dancing boxer which is absolutely hysterical. The film also uses the comic talents of Fritz Feld, Eddie Foy, Jack Durant, and Desi Arnaz, but it is Bolger's vehicle. The biggest problem with the film is that it does not end. It merely stops. Bolger would fine a better vehicle on Broadway with "Where's Charley".
