... and I really like the leading players - (at that time) comic songbird Dick Powell, feisty Joan Blondell, that schemin' demon Warren William after the production code took his fangs away, and always reliable and likable comic support Frank McHugh round out the cast. What gums up the works is the completely predictable script which I could have written by just watching the first ten minutes, and the fact that this is supposed to be a back stage musical at 1930's Warner's where the payoff is usually in the finale where you get to see the stars work out their personal problems and perform some great numbers - but not here. Instead you have a complete unknown (Jeanne Madden as Ruth) laying on a couch singing the film's one catchy tune - "In Your Own Quiet Way", and that is it. There are no finished polished production numbers on display.
So what is good about it? The leading and reliable WB players whom I have already mentioned, and in particular Joan Blondell hamming it up playing a star who is only a star because she tends to commit violent acts against her boyfriends, but can't act, sing, or dance - a triple threat. You'd have to be a good actress to satirize one that is so bad and yet so egotistical at the same time.
What is really bad? The Yacht Club Boys for one. There are four of them, one more than the Three Stooges, and apparently they are going for that kind of humor but they are not funny. Worse, they are dull when they aren't being inane. Then there is ingénue Jeanne Madden as Dick Powell's love interest. She simpers around and projects zero personality, and we never get to see her dance either. So it's rather ironic that Blondell is playing what Ms. Madden actually is here - a flash in the pan (minus the violence I'm assuming) who is out of WB after two mediocre performances, this being her first.
I don't know if the studio thought they could get by with this just because Powell and Blondell were two of their stars who had recently married, but I'd only recommend it to completists and to film history buffs like myself who feel they have to see every film they can get their hands on.
So what is good about it? The leading and reliable WB players whom I have already mentioned, and in particular Joan Blondell hamming it up playing a star who is only a star because she tends to commit violent acts against her boyfriends, but can't act, sing, or dance - a triple threat. You'd have to be a good actress to satirize one that is so bad and yet so egotistical at the same time.
What is really bad? The Yacht Club Boys for one. There are four of them, one more than the Three Stooges, and apparently they are going for that kind of humor but they are not funny. Worse, they are dull when they aren't being inane. Then there is ingénue Jeanne Madden as Dick Powell's love interest. She simpers around and projects zero personality, and we never get to see her dance either. So it's rather ironic that Blondell is playing what Ms. Madden actually is here - a flash in the pan (minus the violence I'm assuming) who is out of WB after two mediocre performances, this being her first.
I don't know if the studio thought they could get by with this just because Powell and Blondell were two of their stars who had recently married, but I'd only recommend it to completists and to film history buffs like myself who feel they have to see every film they can get their hands on.