This is an odd little flick that shows us a day in the life of the bourgeois Hollywood types.
It centers around a ladies' breakfast party known as "Breakfast in Hollywood" where mostly elderly women come to be entertained by the ad libbed wit of Tom Breneman and some musical performances. Four sub plots stem from members of the audience and their lives outside the show. These subplots are:
(1) An old lady who is losing the will to live;
(2) A mousy, middle-aged housewife whose goofy husband is philandering with young girls (who in turn are using him as a meal ticket);
(3) An eccentric, lonely woman who wants nothing but to be recognized for her outrageous hat; and
(4) A young woman who seems to have been jilted by her fiancée, and a young sailor who falls for her.
At the center of it all is Tom Breneman who becomes sort of like Mr. Rourke on Fantasy Island, taking it upon himself to see that everyone comes to a happy end if he can manage it between shows. There's even a Tattoo-like midget in the beginning. Oh, sorry, I believe the politically correct term is "little midget" ;)
I found it charming, but I would have enjoyed it more if not for some unpleasant 1940s attitudes which, unfortunately, show through in many films of the 40s (though not necessarily through any fault of the filmmakers). In particular, Nat King Cole, who is headlined on my DVD, does not actually appear at the ladies' club but instead is shown at a seedier cocktail joint down the street. This discontinuity confused me until I realized it was because of 1940s racial segregation. Evidently there was no such thing as an integrated music hall back then. Either you go to the "white club" or you go to the "black club". And although the movie certainly did not dwell on the segregation, it made me sad to see that such an amazing talent as Nat King Cole & his trio lived in a world where they were not welcome to play for elderly white women at breakfast. All the same, Nat King Cole's performance--fleeting as it was--absolutely SMOKED everyone else in the film, and we're given a rare treat of seeing him razzle-dazzle the ivories (silly me, I thought he was just a singer). I wish he appeared on screen for more than the 3 minutes he was given.
Who knows, maybe the filmmakers were deliberately trying to show us in an oblique way that there's something wrong with the situation of musical segregation. That may be worth considering, and if so I'll have to bump my rating up a bit. But one way or the other, the movie could've used more Nat King Cole!!
It centers around a ladies' breakfast party known as "Breakfast in Hollywood" where mostly elderly women come to be entertained by the ad libbed wit of Tom Breneman and some musical performances. Four sub plots stem from members of the audience and their lives outside the show. These subplots are:
(1) An old lady who is losing the will to live;
(2) A mousy, middle-aged housewife whose goofy husband is philandering with young girls (who in turn are using him as a meal ticket);
(3) An eccentric, lonely woman who wants nothing but to be recognized for her outrageous hat; and
(4) A young woman who seems to have been jilted by her fiancée, and a young sailor who falls for her.
At the center of it all is Tom Breneman who becomes sort of like Mr. Rourke on Fantasy Island, taking it upon himself to see that everyone comes to a happy end if he can manage it between shows. There's even a Tattoo-like midget in the beginning. Oh, sorry, I believe the politically correct term is "little midget" ;)
I found it charming, but I would have enjoyed it more if not for some unpleasant 1940s attitudes which, unfortunately, show through in many films of the 40s (though not necessarily through any fault of the filmmakers). In particular, Nat King Cole, who is headlined on my DVD, does not actually appear at the ladies' club but instead is shown at a seedier cocktail joint down the street. This discontinuity confused me until I realized it was because of 1940s racial segregation. Evidently there was no such thing as an integrated music hall back then. Either you go to the "white club" or you go to the "black club". And although the movie certainly did not dwell on the segregation, it made me sad to see that such an amazing talent as Nat King Cole & his trio lived in a world where they were not welcome to play for elderly white women at breakfast. All the same, Nat King Cole's performance--fleeting as it was--absolutely SMOKED everyone else in the film, and we're given a rare treat of seeing him razzle-dazzle the ivories (silly me, I thought he was just a singer). I wish he appeared on screen for more than the 3 minutes he was given.
Who knows, maybe the filmmakers were deliberately trying to show us in an oblique way that there's something wrong with the situation of musical segregation. That may be worth considering, and if so I'll have to bump my rating up a bit. But one way or the other, the movie could've used more Nat King Cole!!