Some folks won’t be surprised, but I’ll bet some you will be mind-blown by this. I adore this movie, a true unappreciated little gem. This was the last film that starred Ruby Keeler, now without Dick Powell. I have no love for Keeler as an actress or dancer, but lo and behold, the center of this film is Ozzie Nelson as the leader of a jazz band, and his Harriet as a schoolmarm-turned-jazzband-ballad-singer. Directed by Edward Dmytryk, with a strong funny script by Robert Hardy Andrews, it’s not just a way underrated comedy of the time, but a big catalyst for historical revision. The film’s Ozzie and Harriet are basically hipsters. It’s 1941. There’s a somewhat stereotyped Black act (as should be expected) by the Four Spirits of Rhythm, but in context it’s respectful. The story is the basic Busby Berkeley closing-of-the-theaters plot, but here it’s a college campus fighting for a jazz club. I was never really comfortable with the Ozzie and Harriet TV show, but I watched it to see and hear Ricky Nelson. And of course I didn’t know any better. I was, what, eight years old? But seeing Ozzie as a swing band leader, and especially hearing Harriet as a superb lounge singer, I am ready for the revision of Ozzie and Harriet.
band.
