THE HEAT'S ON (1943)

If only this B-list musical were one-third as interesting as it looks from the cast list.  Here’s Mae West,  three years & thirty pounds off her last screen appearance (MY LITTLE CHICKADEE/’40; nothing after till MYRA BRECKINRIDGE/’70), looking better than she had since her debut in NIGHT AFTER NIGHT/’32;  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/night-after-night-1932.html.  (Mae and everyone else, including the art department, much indebted to lenser Franz Planer.)  She’s the star attraction who ditches desperate producer William Gaxton (B’way leading man for Irving Berlin, Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, George Gershwin yet hardly a screen credit) who then tricks professional Blue-nose Victor Moore (his frequent stage partner & lead comedian in shows by George M. Cohan, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter).  If Moore makes the show look spicy by denouncing it, sales should soar.  Unlike Gaxton, Moore had plenty of screen work (Fred & Ginger pics, MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW, SEVEN YEAR ITCH), but this is the only shot at figuring out what they were like together in shows like Gershwin’s OF THEE I SING.  West ‘tops and tails’ the film with two production numbers, but elsewise mere guest appearances in her own film.  Director Gregory Ratoff (best known for acting in WHAT PRICE HOLLYWOOD and ALL ABOUT EVE) fits in plot-free music videos for Xavier Cugat (fun!) and jazz great Helen Scott (even better!), but mostly stays out of the way as Gaxton struggles to get West back in the show.  Wan & predictable, it counts as a missed opportunity of epic proportions.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: This ‘original story’ of a bankrupt theatrical producer who’ll do anything to get his runaway star back not so far removed from another Columbia Pictures film, TWENTIETH CENTURY/’34.  Too bad they didn’t remake that one with this cast!  Add a couple of songs and West could have been wildly different and hilarious in the Carole Lombard role.  While Gaxton just made to play the John Barrymore producer.  And Victor Moore could have his choice of zanies to play.  Plenty for everyone else, too, even the boy/girl ingenue roles with Lloyd Bridges and never-heard-from-again Mary Roche.  (B’way musicalized for real in 1978 as ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: John Cullum, Madeline Kahn, Kevin Kline - Cy Coleman, Betty Comden, Adolph Green.)