While Warner Brothers
was producing those long-legged dazzling geometric musicals, Fox was aiming
more for the family market with Shirley Temple, Bing Crosby, Sonja Henie
and Alice Faye films. Very successful films at the time but without an ounce
of innovation, but plenty of sentimentality. This one is a charmer with Faye
before she hit it big. She is still a peroxide blonde in the Jean Harlow
style - Fox was to push her more into a girl next door type. This runs just
a tad over an hour and has some nice moments both in music and comedy. It
was the final film for Bebe Daniels before she and her husband moved to London
to do a radio show that lasted years - even through the Blitz.
Daniels is great here as an actress who
has reached the mother role stage but refuses to admit it. Daniels had been
a star in the silent era and when sound came in, easily transitioning to
musicals - 42nd Street being her most famous one. I started off being annoyed
by her in this but by the end she is your favorite character. She has a wonderful
scene where she describes to the producers what she wants in her musical
number - sounding like a parody of a Busby Berkeley film - making the producer
nuts. 150 rabbits, 300 soldiers marching. 500 girls waving like a waterfall.
Slim unambitious film. Faye, her male comedy
partners (Frank Mitchell and Jack Durant - a real comedy team at the time)
and her manager (Ray Walker) move to Hollywood to make it big. A sure thing
the manager tells them. Like betting on a one-legged horse. Faye is soon
working in a laundry, the boys driving a tram - but Hollywood magic takes
over and Faye gets her chance and shines. Hattie McDaniel plays a maid of
course, Luis Alberni has a good bit as a restaurant owner, the comedy team
manages to elicit a few hard-earned laughs and the final musical number is
just fine. Harmless enough.
