Director: Laszlo Kardos
Year: 1951
Rating: 6.5
This appeared to be an attempt to create a new film genre - the noir musical
or the musical noir - I am not sure which but the music is a hell of a lot
better than the noir. In fact, it is amazingly good. But the noir part of
this is like a side of hash served cold. Let's get to the noir first - Mickey
Rooney gets out of a vet hospital and packs his drums and heads for Los Angeles.
On the way his car is busted up by a genial mobster who offers him a job
in the rackets. Good pay and good hours so why not. But later on Rooney meets
up with Sally Forrest and is gobsmacked by her. She works at a small nightclub
called Fluffs run by William Demarest and she scams Rooney to come play the
drums to be closer to her. But she is a louse and only uses Rooney to help
her contact his old boss (James Craig) because he can help her show biz ambitions.
And so on.
Rooney is sort of at a mid-career lull - his glory days at MGM doing the
Andy Hardy series is over and so too the fabulous musicals with Judy Garland.
During the 40's he was one of the biggest and best paid stars in Hollywood
but he no longer was the whiz kid and at 5'2'' what can you do with a baby
faced 31 year old. He was still at MGM and they were throwing him into more
adult tough guy roles - Killer McCoy, the noir Quicksand, this film and Drive
a Crooked Road. He is fine here as a possessive love struck fool.
But the only reason really to see this film is the music that takes place
at the nightclubs in the show. The band at Fluffs consists of - get this
- Louis Armstrong, Jack Teagarden and Earl Fatha Hines. These are three of
the greatest jazz players ever. They perform if I recall 4-5 entire songs.
We also get Demarest and Rooney doing a duet. And Vic Damone early on in
his career singing and Monica Lewis (a big star back then) singing and dancing.
With all this great music who cares about the plot. I should mention that
as far as I can tell that is Rooney playing drums with Louis - he was an
accomplished drummer and pretty much at everything else he tried. But to
me his greatest feat will always be marrying Ava Gardner. And then cheating
on her. Cheating on Ava Gardner. Who would do that?
