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Washington Melodrama (1941)
Good Frank Morgan -- OK Movie
Frank Morgan (the Wizard of Oz) usually played to perfection the utterly likable fraud, or the erring aging playboy. But around 1940, MGM began to give him the opportunity to play different types of roles in a series of pleasant but not too demanding pictures. In this one, Frank is a steel tycoon who is the head of a relief organization who gets mixed up in the murder of a showgirl. Frank, as always, is absolutely likable, but has one scene where he gets to utterly lose his temper. It's a revelation of a side one almost never sees in his pictures.
Rest of the movie isn't bad, except for a really dull production number early on. (The choreography is surprisingly ragged for MGM.) The acting besides Frank is only fair, the comic interludes painful, but the plot is actually pretty good, and the political debate that provides much of the conflict is eerily reminiscent of the debates about providing food aid to Iraq in Saddam's era. All in all, worth your time, but you might want to fast forward through the "funny" bits.
Keeping Company (1940)
Wholesome Entertainment In The 1940 MGM Manner --- Yuck!
If you ever hankered for the endless sanctimonious pablum which fills the Andy Hardy films, but preferred that the all-American wit and wisdom to be delivered by an all-wise Frank Morgan (aka the Wizard) rather than an all-wise Judge Hardy, this is your movie. The subject matter -- newlyweds, a "streamlined redhead" who hankers after the hero, jealousy and misunderstandings, and a near business catastrophe -- could make for a pretty good movie, or even a pretty fun trash wallow. But we're in Lake Woebegone territory here -- where nobody except a very minor character is ever really bad, young people are prone to harmless mistakes and all the children are annoyingly above average (if a touch too obsessed about ice cream).
One note -- Frank Morgan shows a different side of his acting skill and is quite good. But other his other pictures of this period -- The Last Virginian, Wild Man of Borneo, show this off as well, and are just as perfectly wholesome, but far less icky about it.