BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie

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."

Kimball Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

mark.waltz When the screenwriter got ahold of the book of the smash hit 1930 Broadway musical, they didn't just take scissors to it. They demolished it with a weed whacker. Gone other than the basic story of a city slicker deemed as "girl crazy" who is sent out to find manhood in the wild, wild west is the bulk of George and Ira Gershwin's unforgettable score. What remains is a mixed bag of typical old vaudeville gags as evidenced by the casting of Wheeler and Woolsey in the top-billed roles.Wheeler is a rather dim-witted Chicago cab driver hired by Woolsey to drive him to Arizona (!) so he can work the crap tables and his wife (Kitty Kelly) can sing at the dude ranch club opened by their city slicker pal (Eddie Quillan). Wheeler is convinced to run for sheriff, but grizzled Stanley Fields threatens to shoot anybody who gets into the sheriff's office other than him. Romance follows for Quillan who takes up with a postal delivery girl (Arline Judge), and Wheeler finds romance with pretty Dorothy Lee. But with Fields out to shoot Wheeler and Judge being romance by a lecherous New Yorker (Brooks Benedict), their chances of getting together seem unlikely.Kelly, no relation to the infamous author of some tell-all autobiographies of Sinatra, Taylor, the Reagans and the Bushes, gets to sing Ethel Merman's star-making song, "I Got Rhythm", and does a decent job with it. The musical number is highlighted by some comical effects, including dancing cactus, a moosehead on the wall which sways, and a bartender (silent comic Monte Collins) whose hair skids back and forth to the rhythm. "Bidin' My Time" sets up the story of all the previously slain sheriffs by showing the local graveyard and a new tombstone being put in. "Never made it to office", the stone says, making you wonder which sap will be next. "But Not For Me" is embarrassingly performed by Mitzi Green (as Wheeler's pesky sister who won't stop demanding that somebody listen to her imitations), Quillan and Judge, and reprised by Green doing mimics of Crosby, stutterer Roscoe Ates, monocled George Arliss, and most hysterically, nose twitching Edna May Oliver. A little bit of that goes a very long way.This seems almost like an after thought, rushed together to capitalize on the show's success and to give Wheeler and Woolsey a vehicle exploiting their talents. It seems lame when compared with the Mickey/Judy MGM version filmed a decade later. That is why Leo the Lion roars at the beginning before the Radio tower begins to beep. On its own, it is acceptable entertainment, with a very funny chase scene between Wheeler and cop Nat Pendleton who is mistaken for a dummy earlier accidentally attached to the back of the cab. The scenes with Wheeler and Woolsey hiding out from Fields are retreads of what they already did in "Rio Rita" and "The Cuckoos", although Woolsey's attempts at hypnotizing Fields are amusing. One of the Mexican senoritas who flirts with the boys is future ingénue Rochelle Hudson. Even though the film is ultimately a mixed bag, it ends on a very funny pre-code note that is the icing on the cake. It's just too bad that the cake is mostly stale.

MartinHafer If you would like a laugh, read through the reviews for this film. A couple of them describe the film like it's a masterpiece--calling it 'a hoot' and another guy gives it a 10. And, conversely, one described it as 'total ineptitude' and another 'dreadfully unfunny'!! Did they make two DIFFERENT versions of Wheeler and Woolsey's "Girl Crazy"?! All I know is that I felt the film was at neither extreme--neither a particularly distinguished film nor a bad one. And, that can be said about most Wheeler and Woolsey efforts.Wheeler and Woolsey leave the big city in search of adventure in modern day Arizona. Little do they know that the casino they are going to work in is also located in a lawless town where sheriffs rarely last a day on the job! Can these two boobs manage to survive? This film is a hybrid--originally a musical and now infused with comedy. That isn't a great thing, as much of the music was dropped and the play's original huge hit, "I Got Music", is a very poor rendition--with poor sound quality and a sub-par tune from Kitty Kelly (though I DID like seeing the cacti dancing as she sang). As for the comedy, it's decent but not hilarious. In other words, it has its moments but isn't great in the comedy department either. But, by far, the absolutely worst part of the film was young Mitzi Green's impressions. Painfully bad is the best way to describe them. Overall, a very mixed bag.

bkoganbing This version of Girl Crazy was the first of three films made from the famous Gershwin Brothers musical. MGM bought the rights from RKO who did this version to do their more famous and much better adaption that starred Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. In the tradition of Hollywood RKO junked nearly the entire memorable Gershwin score with only a few numbers left. The main characters of the Broadway story were relegated to the background and a whole new plot was written for RKO's comedy stars Wheeler&Woolsey. It's the reverse of what MGM did when they bought Rio Rita which RKO did film faithful to the Broadway show and turn it into an Abbott&Costello film.Now if you're a fan of Wheeler&Woolsey that's not the worst thing, if you're a Gershwin purist, skip this one absolutely. All that's left from the Broadway show is Bidin' My Time, But Not For Me, and I've Got Rhythm the last done as a saloon ballad by Kitty Kelly.Eddie Quillan as the playboy from Chicago gets sent west to grow up a little, but instead he brings the nightlife of Chicago out west when he opens a dude ranch. One of the people he sends for his sharpie Robert Woolsey who gets taxi driver Bert Wheeler to drive him from Chicago to Arizona. Wheeler's not a total dummy however, he does have his own reasons for fleeing the Windy City.The two of them get to tangle with tough guy Stanley Fields out west and of course they come out on top.Somehow RKO persuaded the Gershwin Brothers to write one original song for this film and it was done by Bert Wheeler and Dorothy Lee and it's entitled You've Got What Gets Me. It's worse than any of the discarded stuff from Broadway which includes Could You Use Me, Embraceable You, and Sam and Delilah. I think George and Ira pulled this one from the trunk.This film is the worst of the three versions of Girl Crazy and far from the best Wheeler&Woolsey.

didi-5 This movie isn't really that good a version of the 1930 Broadway Gershwin musical, as it leaves the songs aside and is reworked as more of a comedy vehicle for Wheeler and Woolsey. Eddie Quillan and Arline Judge are the flotsam hero and heroine – not really needed, except to murder ‘But Not For Me'. Dorothy Lee is pretty much wasted with little to do (just a couple of scenes and one song with Bert Wheeler – the classic Ella Fitzgerald later made famous, ‘You've Got What Gets Me').The best bits really are the ones that are purely silly: the hypnotism scenes between the boys and the bad guy; the cacti dancing to ‘I Got Rhythm' (oddly sung here as ‘I've Got Rhythm' by sparky Kitty Kelly); Mitzi Green and her imitations (particularly of George Arliss!); little Wheeler elected as sheriff and then chased by the village heavy; and the long-distance taxi ride early in the film with the cardboard cop.So the good news is it is a funny film with lots to enjoy on that front; however this movie doesn't do justice to the stage show; and the photography does most of the cast no favours.Almost everyone involved hated this film – Quillan and Lee didn't see the finished article until several decades later and the songs are dealt with inappropriately. What a pity that the best movie versions of the Gershwin shows (Porgy and Bess; An American in Paris; and of course the remake of Girl Crazy, in 1943) came after George Gershwin died.