Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

WELCOME! Use the search engines on this site (or your own off-site engine of choice) to gain easy access to the complete MAKSQUIBS Archive; more than 5500 posts and counting. (New posts added every day or so.)

You can check on all our titles by typing the Title, Director, Actor or 'Keyword' you're looking for in the Search Engine of your choice (include the phrase MAKSQUIBS) or just use the BLOGSPOT.com Search Box at the top left corner of the page.

Feel free to place comments directly on any of the film posts and to test your film knowledge with the CONTESTS scattered here & there. (Hey! No Googling allowed. They're pretty easy.)

Send E-mails to MAKSQUIBS@yahoo.com . (Let us know if the TRANSLATE WIDGET works!) Or use the Profile Page or Comments link for contact.

Thanks for stopping by.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

THE WEST POINT STORY (1950)

On-the-cheap Warners musical sounds like goofy fun (West Point amateur show gets drilled into shape by a tough B’way professional) but finds almost everyone at a career nadir. James Cagney went thru a bad patch in the early ‘50s (here he looks & acts like a stove-top percolator with the top off) and he wouldn’t recover until his next Doris Day pic, the remarkable LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME/’55. A few good numbers can make these things bearable, but on this one, Jules Styne & Sammy Fain couldn’t work up a single memorable tune for the likes of Doris Day, a game Virginia Mayo or the under-rated Gene Nelson. Only a smoothly handsome Gordon MacRae gets to shine, but this is grim doings.

No comments: