Robert Young plays dual roles--one is a famous movie star who longs to escape and get some needed rest and relaxation and the other is a pineapple plantation owner from Hawaii who is visiting the States. The two meet and decide to switch roles for a while. However, total chaos results and no one believes either one when problems develop and they try to explain the switch. As a result, the actor is almost forced to marry the plantation owner's fiancé and the plantation owner is thought to be crazy and ends up in a straight-jacker! It's all pretty funny, but is greatly hindered by the ill-defined focus of the film. That's because in addition to this cute plot, there is a parallel element to the film that just doesn't seem to fit. Eleanor Powell, the Queen of Dance, is also on hand and spends a HUGE amount of the film dancing and dancing and dancing. And these dancing segments don't seem all that well integrated into the rest of the film. It either should have been ALL comedy or ALL dance--making it BOTH was, in hindsight, a mistake. In addition, while I really liked the nice guys that Young played, I HATED Burns and Allen, as they seemed like more of a distraction than anything else. In fact, Gracie's brand of humor, to me, wore very thin. I guess that they aren't everyone's taste!
Review of Honolulu
