1946 (February) A Warner Bros. First National Picture Directed by Busby Berkeley Written by Charles Hoffman Photographed by Sol Polito Music by Frederick Hollander 89 minutes Starring Joan Leslie, Robert Alda, S. Z. Sakall, Edward Everett Horton, Julie Bishop, William Prince, Charles Dingle, Ruth Donnelly, Elisha Cook, Jr., Hobart Cavanaugh, Chester Clute An eccentric millionaire's will leaves everything to his sole surviving heir, neice Judy Jones (Joan Leslie). A nationwide advertising campaign locates the girl, now grownup and singing in boyfriend Tommy Cole's (Rober Alda's) big band. But there's a catch. The will stipulates that she must be married to a man with at least a 150 IQ by a set date if she is to inherit anything; and so Judy quits the band to enrolls at all-male, all-genius Sierra Institute of Technology in order to land an intellectually qualified husband. Tommy, still very much in love, isn't going to give her up that easily, and things get rather complicated when Judy begins to fall for handsome chemistry professor Bart Williams (William Prince). The October date draws apace, and highjinx ensue as the Estate's trustees conspire with the endowment-hungry Sierra Tech faculty in a desperate attempt to get Judy hitched to someone -- anyone -- before the rapidly approaching deadline. A modern day version of Cinderella, the movie is a musical with only four musical numbers. The score, by Jule Styne and Sammy Kahn, is solid if unspectacular, with a ghostess singing sweetly for Joan Leslie on the soundtrack. You either like Berkeley's stagings or you don't. Fans and detractors may be equally surprised, though, to see a strangely sedate Berkeley at work in "Cinderella's" production numbers. For example, Joan simply lipsyncs the score's best song (the ballad, "When the One You Love") over a series of shots of pretty charity ball hostesses and a single close-up of Joan at a microphone. The title song, in up-tempo swing arrangement, gets a more elaborate treatment, with Julie Bishop and Joan Leslie jitterbugging for a few priceless seconds with hep S. Z. Sakall -- the film's best moment. There are some odd flourishes. Elisha Cook, Jr. as Oliver S. Patch, Judy's would-be roommate, later suitor -- a lad with a creepy oedipal fixation. An axe-murderer warbling "By a Waterfall with You." A marriage performed on a tank convoy. A shrunken head. At one point, the whole cast ends up behind bars a la Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby. Muscial numbers aside, the film is really a late entry in the screwball cycle, drawing more inspiration from the rapid-fire mapcap comedies of Sturges and Hawks than from Berkeley's earlier work with Warners, Metro and Fox. Manic romantic comedy was not Berkeley's forte, however, and the whole movie misfires a little. The film reunites three of the principle cast members of Rhapsody in Blue: Joan Leslie, Robert Alda, and Julie Bishop (here as a man-happy lady cabdriver named Camille). Veteran character actors Edward Everett Horton (Keatings) and S. Z. Sakall (Professor Popik) are on hand, and here (as always) funs to watch. A starring vehicle for Joan Leslie, the film's success hinges to a larger than usual extent on the audience's acceptance of Joan. It's always an equivocal pleasure to see a very intelligent actress playing a very stupid character, especially when she plays it well. Judy Jones, the fetching but impossibly dumb fortune hunter, is only a shade smarter than (and just as linguistically challenged as) Marie Wilson's quintessential dumb blonde, Irma Petersen. But Judy's friends don't stand around hurling insults at her she can't understand, and there's a great difference in that. The movie will probably appeal to most Joan Leslie fans -- the offbeat casting has curiosity value and the script enough laughs to maintain interest for 90 or so minutes, the songs are tuneful, and Joan never looked sweeter. Recommended. |
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