Something for the Boys
                                                                             
Director: Lewis Seiler
Year: 1944
Rating: 6.0
Here is another Fox Musical of the 1940s. Their glory days. Back long ago when there were physical dvd stores to shop in, I picked up dvd sets of the films of Betty Grable, Alice Faye and Carmen Miranda and all these years later I am finally getting around to watching some of them. They are nearly all shot in eye-simmering Technicolor and have silly plots about love. Love was in back then. Not cynical love. Not sexual love. Just old-fashioned love when they talk about family and the moon above. Sometimes, I need those innocent films. Preferably filled with music. And Fox provided that. I am a big fan of musicals whether these Fox Technicolor dreams or the Warner working class films of guys and dames trying to make it in show business choreographed by Busby Berkely. And then of course the MGM high budget bonanzas with more talent than should be allowed. During the 30s, there was RKO pumping out the Astaire/Rogers films. Paramount had all those Bing Crosby films solo or teamed up with Hope or Lamour.  Universal studio was saved from bankruptcy by the Deanna Durbin films.



I know a lot of people just don't like the genre much. Find it unbelievable that people just break out into song on a sidewalk or on the deck of a ship and suddenly a mysterious phantom orchestra joins in from somewhere. But they can believe monster movies or spaceships or an action film where the hero never runs out of ammo.  I like them all because of that. Who wants reality. I read the newspapers for that. Take me away from reality and Hollywood musicals do that. So do Bollywood films but that is another subject. There is so much talent having to work together to make a successful musical. The actors of course but all the set designers, costumes, choreography, song writers have to work together to make it work. Fox had enough talent behind the camera that they could even give a musical such as this one to an old warhorse director like Lewis Seiler who was just coming off Guadalcanal Diary and before that a bunch of crime films (King of the Underworld), social realism (Hell's Kitchen) or zany comedies (You're in the Army Now). And it's fine.



And this film is that - just fine. No great shakes but easy to watch and listen to. A musical with doses of comedy and romance. It is war time and musicals are bigger than ever. When this was released in November of 1944, people were finally hopeful about the war. The Allies had invaded Europe, Germany was on the run, our planes were bombing them constantly and the Russians were in the East marching towards Berlin. A sense of optimism was in the air and this film about girls and soldiers fit the mood. A cute enough plot - three cousins unknown to each other hear on the radio that they have inherited a huge plantation in the south. Vivian Blaine is performing when she hears the news, Phil Silvers is trying to sell hosiery in NYC on the corner of Wall and Nassau and Carmen Miranda is working at a defense plant. Take a close look at the girl behind her who has a few lines - she would be famous one day. Judy Holiday.



They all plan on a life of leisure, drinking mint juleps and watching the cotton grow high. But the plantation looks as if Sherman had just rolled over it the week before. A disaster. But a group of army men from the nearby camp think it would be perfect for army wives - led by Michael O'Shea who falls for Blaine in a minute and starts talking about coming home to a dinner and his wife someday and how nice that would be. She looks all starry-eyed. Different times. To make money for renovations, they of course put on a show. It seems everyone did back then when short of money. Complications ensue of course but nothing love can't overcome. One young soldier gets up to sing - hmmm - looks familiar - oh - Perry Como in the first of only a handful of films that he was in. Maybe they wouldn't let him wear his sweater. Some nice music here and a very fun raucous song from Silvers who ends up accidentally in half-black-face singing Mammy. Rory Calhoun is in there somewhere as is June Haver. Haver would be a musical star at Fox within just a couple of years.