This movie was awful. A toddler could've written a better script. It lacked depth, self-awareness, and understanding. What looked like a different version of "The Dance of Life" couldn't come close to it. It was devoid of any pathos or any other elements to make the viewer engaged.
The movie stars Mary Eaton as Gloria Hughes, a singer and dancer. She sang at a department store while her boyfriend Buddy (Edward Crandall) played piano. She was discovered by a performer and sexual predator named Danny Miller (Dan Healy). He asked her to join his act titled "Miller and Mooney" and Gloria was delighted. Miller was smalltime but this was Gloria's chance to break it into the big leagues. Buddy wasn't too thrilled because this meant Gloria would be gone for weeks with a strange guy.
Waiting for Gloria's man to be available was Barbara (Gloria Shea) like a vulture waiting for carrion. The moment Gloria was out of the picture Barbara was there to comfort Buddy and more if he wanted. She wasn't overt and pushy with her desires, she was just there--close and warm. Meanwhile, Gloria was fighting off her boss, Miller, who wanted Gloria for more than just singing and dancing. She was ready to leave Miller's outfit and go back home to Buddy, but her emotionally manipulative and greedy mom (Sarah Edwards) guilted her into staying.
This was a testament to both of their character. Mrs. Hughes was so greedy she'd let a man take complete advantage of her daughter if it meant money in her pockets, and Gloria was so loyal to her mom that she'd accept such treatment for her sake. There's very little more odious than a manipulative mother taking advantage of her children.
Gloria remained with Miller and even signed a five year contract with him. Little did she know that Miller only did that because he knew she was being recruited by a bigger act, so a contract with her meant he'd stay relevant as well.
The real absurdity began when Gloria went back home after touring. Buddy met her at the train station with Barbara in tow. Already that's a bad look. What guy goes to pick up his G. F. with another woman? So we're starting to understand Buddy's emotional intelligence here and it's lacking.
Barbara was there platonically from Buddy's perspective, but for Barbara it meant much more. The moment Buddy laid eyes on Gloria he left Barbara high and dry. It was like she wasn't even with him to begin with.
Buddy and Gloria merrily hopped in a taxi cab to kiss and catch up. Then Barbara, like a stray puppy that's grown attached to an individual for giving it food, ran after Buddy as if to say, "What about me? Don't forget me!" and got hit by a car. She was so consumed with Buddy she forgot to look for vehicles when she stepped into the street.
The Gloria-Buddy-Barabara saga proceeded to get worse.
Barbara was taken to a hospital while Gloria went to an audition with Buddy. She got the part, but Buddy wasn't the least bit pleased. This would mean seeing even less of Gloria than he already had. Instead of being a man and talking to her about the situation and his feelings, he tucked his tail between his legs and said goodbye. Gloria could've understood that goodbye as a final goodbye, or she could've assumed that he was just sore for the moment and that they would talk later. Most normal people would've assumed the latter and not the former.
Buddy went back home to somberly play his piano. As he was playing his sad music his landlady told him that Barbara was in the hospital and she was asking for him.
How pathetic. This woman got hit by a car, yet she was clambering for someone else's man. She didn't call on anyone else but Buddy, a guy who didn't belong to her. She didn't ask for her mom, her pastor, or her best friend--she called out Buddy's name.
Well, Buddy, in his depressed state, went to the hospital where he found Barbara in a fitful sleep saying "Buddy don't leave me," over and over again. It was a pitiful scene. The emotionally immature and egotistically wounded Buddy told Barbara that he'd never leave her again and then married the poor girl.
Where did that come from?? We didn't see anything truly develop between them. It's not like he was fighting back feelings for her because he was already in a committed relationship. Was Buddy so emotionally needy that he excised Gloria and replaced her with Barbara that quickly and easily?
To make matters worse, he didn't even tell Gloria. He simply wrote her a note that she received while performing at a big show. It was terribly poor taste that was made poorer by the fact he and Barbara showed up at her show together expecting Gloria to be happy for them.
I tell you, this was some wretched writing. It's probably best she didn't end up with Buddy anyway because he was such a chump. He didn't even try with Gloria. He took the easy way out which is all he could probably handle anyway. He was such a simpleton and "Glorifying the American Girl" failed to highlight that. When they showed him on screen with Barbara in the audience at Gloria's show after he just crushed her with his note he was all smiles like he'd done a wonderful thing. His stupidity and spinelessness was without limit. In a way he was worse than Miller. Miller was a sleaze bag, but Gloria knew that and she fought him off. Buddy was her beloved and he broke it off with her at the first sign of inconvenience to him and didn't even have the nerve to tell her face to face. What a wuss.
I'll end there with regards to Buddy and pick back up with Gloria's mom Mrs. Hughes. There was never a resolution with her; or Miller for that matter. GTAG never circled back to these two horrendous characters to show them either changing their ways or getting their just desserts. They were shown early in all of their ugliness and dropped for a stage performance.
GTAG spent an inordinate amount of time on stage performances (this is a movie not a play). The characters were barely developed because we got as much dialogue and exposition about the characters as we did singing and dancing numbers. At one point they showed a twelve minute scene from a play with no context. It was just inserted into the movie like it belonged there. Time that could've been spent on the unresolved issues between Gloria and Buddy, Gloria and Miller, and Gloria and her mother, was spent on the play titled "Glorifying the American Girl." It made no sense.
I think all of the singing, dancing, and stage performance footage was due to lack of an adequate script. As if the writers wrote a forty-five minute movie and needed another forty-five minutes of movie to have a full feature. This was such an incomplete and unsatisfying flick it can barely be called a movie at all.
Free with Amazon Prime.
The movie stars Mary Eaton as Gloria Hughes, a singer and dancer. She sang at a department store while her boyfriend Buddy (Edward Crandall) played piano. She was discovered by a performer and sexual predator named Danny Miller (Dan Healy). He asked her to join his act titled "Miller and Mooney" and Gloria was delighted. Miller was smalltime but this was Gloria's chance to break it into the big leagues. Buddy wasn't too thrilled because this meant Gloria would be gone for weeks with a strange guy.
Waiting for Gloria's man to be available was Barbara (Gloria Shea) like a vulture waiting for carrion. The moment Gloria was out of the picture Barbara was there to comfort Buddy and more if he wanted. She wasn't overt and pushy with her desires, she was just there--close and warm. Meanwhile, Gloria was fighting off her boss, Miller, who wanted Gloria for more than just singing and dancing. She was ready to leave Miller's outfit and go back home to Buddy, but her emotionally manipulative and greedy mom (Sarah Edwards) guilted her into staying.
This was a testament to both of their character. Mrs. Hughes was so greedy she'd let a man take complete advantage of her daughter if it meant money in her pockets, and Gloria was so loyal to her mom that she'd accept such treatment for her sake. There's very little more odious than a manipulative mother taking advantage of her children.
Gloria remained with Miller and even signed a five year contract with him. Little did she know that Miller only did that because he knew she was being recruited by a bigger act, so a contract with her meant he'd stay relevant as well.
The real absurdity began when Gloria went back home after touring. Buddy met her at the train station with Barbara in tow. Already that's a bad look. What guy goes to pick up his G. F. with another woman? So we're starting to understand Buddy's emotional intelligence here and it's lacking.
Barbara was there platonically from Buddy's perspective, but for Barbara it meant much more. The moment Buddy laid eyes on Gloria he left Barbara high and dry. It was like she wasn't even with him to begin with.
Buddy and Gloria merrily hopped in a taxi cab to kiss and catch up. Then Barbara, like a stray puppy that's grown attached to an individual for giving it food, ran after Buddy as if to say, "What about me? Don't forget me!" and got hit by a car. She was so consumed with Buddy she forgot to look for vehicles when she stepped into the street.
The Gloria-Buddy-Barabara saga proceeded to get worse.
Barbara was taken to a hospital while Gloria went to an audition with Buddy. She got the part, but Buddy wasn't the least bit pleased. This would mean seeing even less of Gloria than he already had. Instead of being a man and talking to her about the situation and his feelings, he tucked his tail between his legs and said goodbye. Gloria could've understood that goodbye as a final goodbye, or she could've assumed that he was just sore for the moment and that they would talk later. Most normal people would've assumed the latter and not the former.
Buddy went back home to somberly play his piano. As he was playing his sad music his landlady told him that Barbara was in the hospital and she was asking for him.
How pathetic. This woman got hit by a car, yet she was clambering for someone else's man. She didn't call on anyone else but Buddy, a guy who didn't belong to her. She didn't ask for her mom, her pastor, or her best friend--she called out Buddy's name.
Well, Buddy, in his depressed state, went to the hospital where he found Barbara in a fitful sleep saying "Buddy don't leave me," over and over again. It was a pitiful scene. The emotionally immature and egotistically wounded Buddy told Barbara that he'd never leave her again and then married the poor girl.
Where did that come from?? We didn't see anything truly develop between them. It's not like he was fighting back feelings for her because he was already in a committed relationship. Was Buddy so emotionally needy that he excised Gloria and replaced her with Barbara that quickly and easily?
To make matters worse, he didn't even tell Gloria. He simply wrote her a note that she received while performing at a big show. It was terribly poor taste that was made poorer by the fact he and Barbara showed up at her show together expecting Gloria to be happy for them.
I tell you, this was some wretched writing. It's probably best she didn't end up with Buddy anyway because he was such a chump. He didn't even try with Gloria. He took the easy way out which is all he could probably handle anyway. He was such a simpleton and "Glorifying the American Girl" failed to highlight that. When they showed him on screen with Barbara in the audience at Gloria's show after he just crushed her with his note he was all smiles like he'd done a wonderful thing. His stupidity and spinelessness was without limit. In a way he was worse than Miller. Miller was a sleaze bag, but Gloria knew that and she fought him off. Buddy was her beloved and he broke it off with her at the first sign of inconvenience to him and didn't even have the nerve to tell her face to face. What a wuss.
I'll end there with regards to Buddy and pick back up with Gloria's mom Mrs. Hughes. There was never a resolution with her; or Miller for that matter. GTAG never circled back to these two horrendous characters to show them either changing their ways or getting their just desserts. They were shown early in all of their ugliness and dropped for a stage performance.
GTAG spent an inordinate amount of time on stage performances (this is a movie not a play). The characters were barely developed because we got as much dialogue and exposition about the characters as we did singing and dancing numbers. At one point they showed a twelve minute scene from a play with no context. It was just inserted into the movie like it belonged there. Time that could've been spent on the unresolved issues between Gloria and Buddy, Gloria and Miller, and Gloria and her mother, was spent on the play titled "Glorifying the American Girl." It made no sense.
I think all of the singing, dancing, and stage performance footage was due to lack of an adequate script. As if the writers wrote a forty-five minute movie and needed another forty-five minutes of movie to have a full feature. This was such an incomplete and unsatisfying flick it can barely be called a movie at all.
Free with Amazon Prime.