...thus I'll give this one a six out of ten. If the plot had been more original it could merit an eight.
Three girls (Alice Faye, Frances Langford, Patsy Kelly) work together in an office and get fired for using the boss' Dictaphone to make a record. They can't find any other jobs - this is still the Depression you know - and quickly run out of food and then out of rent money. Locked out of their own apartment, sitting on the rooming house steps, they see a sign advertising one hundred dollars for the winner of a radio contest. That will get them back into their room and buy food so off they go.
The contest is hilarious, there is a very bad but dramatic trio, a bad singer in the operatic style, and even a woman singing while clucking like a chicken. Walter Catlett as the master of ceremonies is tailor made for the part. He's quite polite to all of the contestants right up to the time when he "gongs them" and cuts short their acts. Then in comes George Raft, as Tops Cordona with his orchestra consisting of pipe fitters, bricklayers, and carpenters. Tops is the conductor. They turn out to be quite good. Next, the girls are up, but Susan (Frances Langford) passes out from lack of food. They probably would have won, but with the act unfinished, the prize goes to Cordona and his band.
Later the girls and Tops decide to team up - he names them "The Swanee Sisters" and has them fake southern accents. He promises that they will make lots of money and have lots of fun. He is half right. It turns out that Tops is a PR guy and salesman extraordinaire, as well as a good band leader. The problem is, he has the girls and the band going from show to show to the point that they have no time for fun. So, with an invitation to a swanky Park Avenue party, the girls run out on Tops, who has to do that night's show all alone. How does this all work out? Watch and find out. I'll just say that the girls find out that the upper crust is crustier than they imagined, and Tops finds out he is not tops without the girls doing vocals.
The real conflict here is that Langford's character, Susan, is crazy for Tops, but all he seems to see in her is a singer for his band. That is the drama behind the film - there really is no other real conflict.
With Alice Faye loaned out from Fox for her great musical presence and voice, and Patsy Kelly loaned from Hal Roach for her wisecracking abilities, this film has plenty of talent, plus it is rich in the atmosphere of old time radio. But if you see Raft as the headliner and expect some kind of crime drama or mystery, look elsewhere. What particularly surprised me was that the director of this film was Raoul Walsh, of whom Jack Warner once joked "Raoul's idea of a tender love scene is to burn down a whorehouse." Walsh adamantly believed the three greatest virtues of film were "action, action, and then action." So to look at those action films he made at WB from 1939 through 1949 and then look at this film, you would hardly recognize them as the product of the same director.
Recommended for the music and the nostalgia of it all.
Three girls (Alice Faye, Frances Langford, Patsy Kelly) work together in an office and get fired for using the boss' Dictaphone to make a record. They can't find any other jobs - this is still the Depression you know - and quickly run out of food and then out of rent money. Locked out of their own apartment, sitting on the rooming house steps, they see a sign advertising one hundred dollars for the winner of a radio contest. That will get them back into their room and buy food so off they go.
The contest is hilarious, there is a very bad but dramatic trio, a bad singer in the operatic style, and even a woman singing while clucking like a chicken. Walter Catlett as the master of ceremonies is tailor made for the part. He's quite polite to all of the contestants right up to the time when he "gongs them" and cuts short their acts. Then in comes George Raft, as Tops Cordona with his orchestra consisting of pipe fitters, bricklayers, and carpenters. Tops is the conductor. They turn out to be quite good. Next, the girls are up, but Susan (Frances Langford) passes out from lack of food. They probably would have won, but with the act unfinished, the prize goes to Cordona and his band.
Later the girls and Tops decide to team up - he names them "The Swanee Sisters" and has them fake southern accents. He promises that they will make lots of money and have lots of fun. He is half right. It turns out that Tops is a PR guy and salesman extraordinaire, as well as a good band leader. The problem is, he has the girls and the band going from show to show to the point that they have no time for fun. So, with an invitation to a swanky Park Avenue party, the girls run out on Tops, who has to do that night's show all alone. How does this all work out? Watch and find out. I'll just say that the girls find out that the upper crust is crustier than they imagined, and Tops finds out he is not tops without the girls doing vocals.
The real conflict here is that Langford's character, Susan, is crazy for Tops, but all he seems to see in her is a singer for his band. That is the drama behind the film - there really is no other real conflict.
With Alice Faye loaned out from Fox for her great musical presence and voice, and Patsy Kelly loaned from Hal Roach for her wisecracking abilities, this film has plenty of talent, plus it is rich in the atmosphere of old time radio. But if you see Raft as the headliner and expect some kind of crime drama or mystery, look elsewhere. What particularly surprised me was that the director of this film was Raoul Walsh, of whom Jack Warner once joked "Raoul's idea of a tender love scene is to burn down a whorehouse." Walsh adamantly believed the three greatest virtues of film were "action, action, and then action." So to look at those action films he made at WB from 1939 through 1949 and then look at this film, you would hardly recognize them as the product of the same director.
Recommended for the music and the nostalgia of it all.