Director: Irving Cummings
Year: 1951
Rating: 6.0
Not that this is a terrible film by any means but
with its headliners, you would expect so much more. Frank Sinatra, Groucho
Marx and Jane Russell is a pretty good package of stars and yet this feels
like warm milk for much of the running time. There is a lot of pizzazz potential
here but for reasons unknown both Sinatra and Russell play characters with
none. Groucho is his usual wisecracking one-liner self but most of them fall
short of their mark. Laughs.
All three actors were at interesting points in their career which may be
why they ended up in this RKO production. Sinatra was in a career swoon (check
out the position of his name on the posters) after years of popularity as
both a singer and actor. His divorce to his wife and affair with Ava Gardner
was met with general hostility by the public (how times have changed) and
in a series of concerts there were plenty of empty seats. This film didn't
help much and it wasn't until 1953 with From Here to Eternity that his career
was revived thankfully.
Groucho's great and I mean great film career was a thing of the far past
but he had just brought You Bet Your Life to TV and that was to make him
an iconic figure once again. Russell had had a strange film career - beginning
with Howard Hughes's The Outlaw (1943) which made her a pin-up star but the
film had a haphazard release and she sort of disappeared till Bob Hope's
The Paleface in 1948 and then again not much until Hughes bought RKO and
pushed her career. But it wasn't until she left RKO and made Gentleman Prefer
Blondes with MGM that her career took off. I would have to imagine that the
title of this film was derived from her famous 38 assets though she keeps
them well-sheltered here.
So the film. Sinatra plays a tweeby bank teller as does goodie-two shoes
Russell. They want to get married but have no money until Sinatra saves a
mobster from a mugging and in gratitude the mobster places a few bets for
Sinatra that win him $60,000. With a $45 a week salary that is manna from
heaven. Unfortunately, at the same time the bank discovers that $75,000 is
missing and complications arise. This is a comedy btw and there are moments
in which their friend Groucho is good - in particular his interview with
the bank President. "What is your address", Groucho "My address? I want your
address. I am giving my money to you". There are also two musical numbers
- they needed more - a duet between Sinatra and Groucho and then between
Sinatra and Russell. Though written by legends Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne,
they feel like throwaways.
