Composer Jerome Kern’s last B’way show, VERY WARM FOR MAY, must have been jinxed. A final collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein II after SHOW BOAT; SWEET ADELINE; MUSIC IN THE AIR (all filmed more or less intact), this retitled film kept nothing but one song (‘All the Things You Are’) and a bit of its out-of-town theater setting. But then, the stage show was treated just as shabbily by absent-producer Max Gordon, off in Hollywood embalming his hit play, ABE LINCOLN IN ILLINOIS, then, upon his belated return, insisting on a new book no one liked . . . not even him! A blah three-month run & Kern never wrote for B’way again.* The largely original film version (downgraded from top producer Arthur Freed to L. B. Mayer son-in-law Jack Cummings) tries an Old School/New School angle with young producer George Murphy (sporting a disfiguring mustache) staging an up-to-date show for B’way while ‘Pops’ (Charles Winninger) opts for old-fashioned hoke out-of-town. Naturally, they join forces for a smash ending that makes little sense as drama or logistics. So it’s a good thing Roy Del Ruth’s film has a slew of Dance Directors staging nifty specialty acts. Worth a look to see young Lena Horne tear into Gershwin’s ‘Somebody Loves Me’; piano dazzler Hazel Scott swinging Chopin; a pair of good tap solos; slightly bizarre impressionist Dean Murphy go from Joe E. Brown to FDR & Eleanor; even leading lady Ginny Simms who offers little but diminuendos on long-held high notes. And that missing plot continuity? So extreme, it feels downright refreshing.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Kern did sign on for ANNIE GET YOUR GUN with lyricist/librettist Dorothy Fields and Ethel Merman as star, but died before he got started. (Producers Rodgers & Hammerstein induced Irving Berlin to take over, which he did, generously altering his percentage in Dorothy Fields' favor since Berlin wrote his own lyrics. A very classy move.)
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/DOUBLE-BILL: Hollywood rule-of-thumb says any storyline, no matter how tangential or idiotic, is better than no storyline, even if you’re just hiding a revue. See plotless ZIEGFELD FOLLIES/’45, fabulous and frustrating, for confirmation.
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