Well,
at least you know you are going to hear some fine music in the film. That
is because the Fabulous Dorseys are played by Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey. When
they play the film has rhythm, but otherwise this is as bland as a date with
Doris Day. Neither can act a lick and both come off as really unlikable jerks.
Which in truth may have been the case. This is a Mom and Pop Apple Pie version
of their lives. Some of it is true but it is smothered in cornpone sentimentality.
The producers must have found the lives of the brothers so dull that they
invent two characters and spend as much time on their romance as on the brothers.
It begins in a small town in Pennsylvania,
two Irish boys are forced to learn to play instruments; Tommy on trombone
and Jimmy on the clarinet and saxophone. Dad (Arthur Shields) tells his lads,
this is your way out of working in the coal mines. Mom (Sara Allgood) bakes
them pies filled with motherly love. Their female friend Jane (Janet Blair)
keeps them from fighting each other. Que drama. It is the Depression so times
are tough but they become big. In fact, the Dorsey's were huge in the Big
Band era. Sinatra started off in the Tommy Dorsey Band. Too bad he doesn't
make a cameo. The brothers break up and form their own bands and are quite
successful. Mom and Pops try and bring them together - so does Jane who is
also a singer in the band. Nice cameo from the great Art Tatum and the whitest
man in jazz, Paul Whiteman. By the time of this film they were together again.
Both though were to die in their fifties within a few years after the film.
A bit of a snorefest but some fine music.
