On the surface, Thank Your Lucky Stars is just one of the star-studded wartime variety shows that were intended to display Hollywood’s commitment to the war effort. Most film historians treat it like Stage Door Canteen from the same year, and Hollywood Canteen, released a year later. Those films explicitly referenced actual clubs that provided free entertainment for servicemen (in New York and L.A. respectively), often provided by major film and musical stars. The films updated the backstage show format by linking distinct stage routines with thin romantic fantasies of soldiers on three day passes. Along with Big Set revues, they often featured music and dance performances by stars who had never done that sort of thing on screen — Katherine Hepburn in Stage Door Canteen, Jane Wyman in Hollywood Canteen, and Bette Davis and Ann Sheridan in Lucky Stars — and self-parodying backstage bits by famous dramatic actors.
I enjoy those films, but Thank Your Lucky Stars is on a whole other level. The USO cabaret format hasn’t emerged yet. The war is evident not in military reach-arounds, but in the satirical lyrics of the Schwartz-Loesser songs. Where most of the other films like it have flimsy plots, Lucky Stars‘s screenplay by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama is a thing of beauty.
Frank and Panama later became an important writer-director team, responsible for some Danny Kaye’s masterpieces (Knock on Wood, The Court Jester). I’ve only recently started to explore their films. As directors, most of their films are outside my period. As writers, though, I think they are among the most inventive and funny of the war and early postwar period — and unjustly ignored by historians of the genre. A Frank-Panama story often hinges on a main character with multiple barely controlled identities, which come in different forms — Danny Kaye’s pre- and post-hypnotic personalities in The Court Jester, the real and faux movie cowboy Callaway in Callaway Went Thataway, and Kaye’s various escape guises in Knock on Wood. The device in Lucky Stars is that Eddie Cantor appears playing both “himself” and a down-and-out lookalike, Joe Simpson, who can’t get an acting job in Hollywood because he looks too much like Eddie Cantor.
These star revues relied on A-List actors playing themselves performing in humorous skits, vignettes with the diegetic characters, and glamorous song and dance routines. The point was to show real stars playing themselves out of character (or, as in Lucky Stars, self-parodistically in character) to show that they are “real people” putting together broad entertainments for the boys, Hollywood versions of USO shows. In Lucky Stars, Dinah Shore, Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, John Garfield, Olivia de Havilland, Ida Lupino, Erroll Flynn, and other Warners players make fun of their studio personae, and even appear vulnerable for the audience. We might call that Illusion Level A — stars of illusion pretending to be real. Eddie Cantor also does something like that, but at Illusion Level B — a star pretending to be a parody of himself. He gets to parody his standard little nebbish in Joe Simpson, as well as what is said to have been his contemporary Photoplay reputation as a big time obnoxious Hollywood macher. Both are part of his aura — but there’s no “regular” Eddie Cantor. Cantor plays “Eddie Cantor” as an uncontrollably egotistical Hollywood radio star who tells agonizingly corny jokes and performs songs and dances that were outdated in the 1920s, a freak so controlling no producer wants to work with him. On the other side, he plays Joe Simpson as a humble little Doppelgänger who detests “Cantor” for impeding his chances in the movies and forcing him to make his living as bus driver giving tours of the stars’ neighborhoods (the same ones as in the film itself). Then there’s Illusion Level C — the self-enclosed diegetic dream-world of the Hollywood machine. The story on this level is of two young aspirants, Tommy Randolph (played by Dennis Morgan), a handsome, young, slightly conceited crooner, and Pat Dixon (played by Joan Leslie), a fresh, energetic, imaginative but rather talentless songwriter. Both are looking for a break, they fall for each other, and team up. (In Hollywood Canteen, released a year later, Leslie was considered star enough to combine “herself” and the intra-diegetic romantic ingenue in the same character.)
Meanwhile, there’s a parallel comedy of two contracts. A couple of producers trying to cast a show, Farnsworth and Dr. Schlenna (played by Edward Everett Horton and S.Z. Sakall), desperately want to hire Dinah Shore, who was the real singing diva of the real Eddie Cantor’s real radio show. But they need “Cantor” to agree to lend her to the studio. That proves to be a challenge. Cantor will only go along if he gets creative input into the show, and given his nature, that would be a controlling input — something Farnsworth and Dr. Schlemma desperately want to avoid. At the same time, “Cantor,” falling prey to his own narcissism, is hoodwinked by Tommy’s crooked fly-by-night agent into signing his autograph on Tommy’s contract — which is duly delivered to Tommy, who now believes he’s getting his big break on the Cantor radio show. In this fantasia of splitting, doubling, and simulating, even the contracts live double lives.
First things first. The film opens with a fully swinging Leo Forbstein/Ray Heinsdorf jazz orchestra arrangement of the film’s title tune, one of several excellent Arthur Schwartz-Frank Loesser songs. The credits scroll with so many top stars’ names they appear alphabetically (the only solution to the problems of billing hierarchy); it’s hard to imagine how they’ll let each other get screen time. This is Dinah Shore’s first film — and the Illusion Level C meta- stuff gets going from the start. Shore didn’t sing with any of the big bands. She was discovered by Cantor and singing on his real radio show in the early 40s was her first job. She plays “herself” as a singer on “Eddie Cantor’s” radio show. Given Cantor’s stature and popularity, the contemporary audience probably understood the trope right away. (That’s Ray Heindorf conducting the Warner orchestra — as was customary, the band was probably accompanying Shore during the actual shooting.)
We’re introduced to Joe Simpson just as Tommy — in his mind newly hired by Eddie Cantor and at peak admiration for him — triggers Joe’s visceral revulsion at hearing the name of “that popeyed baboon.” In this scene all the levels mix: Joe makes his pitch to David Butler and Mark Hellinger, the actual director and producer of the film we’re viewing.
The rest of the story follows the structure of a classical identical-doubles romance comedy. The humble Cantor/Joe, pushed down by the aura of the mighty Cantor/”Cantor” (who hasn’t even met Joe before the action begins), slowly rises to eminence, while his nemesis slides down slowly into abjectitude. The two young lovers navigate the speed bumps of Hollywood ingenue-juvenile ambition, and achieve… well, something, with the help of their suddenly fortunate Joe. That’s the abstract. The way it plays out is very fine.
Pat, who has been left penniless after her boss, Tommy’s crooked agent, skedaddles out of town, is taken up by Joe and welcomed in a commune of out of work performers outside Hollywood, called Gower Gulch, a settlement built entirely out of discarded movie set props. (There was a real Gower Gulch, a neighborhood of discount studios famous for cheap westerns, a hangout of movie cowboys waiting for work as extras.) In the Hollywood equivalent of a hobo camp — where Tommy is also a resident — Pat arrives just after a performance by Spike Jones and His City Slickers (Jones’s first film appearance). Comic bands were popular, but Jones’s were unquestionably the most musically accomplished of them.
Tommy greets Pat and Joe, levels Joe by announcing that he has a contract with the Cantor radio show, and begins a big flirt with Pat. (Symmetry check: Farnsworth and Dr. Schlemma want a legitimate contract to take Dinah Shore temporarily away from the show, for which they need “Cantor’s” ok, while Tommy already has a bogus-but-valid one with the same show — unbeknownst to “Cantor.”) In a nice scene, Tommy plays the future crooner star (he’s still in the hobo camp, mind you), and Pat takes the opportunity to pitch her one song. It’s a steep and very funny joke throughout the film that no one wants actually to hear Pat’s schmaltzy song, so we’re pretty sure it will be featured in the finale. But it ain’t. It may be that bad. She tries to recite her lyrics, but they kinda hurt the hearers. (This may be a deep inside joke, considering how great Loesser’s lyrics are in this film.) Tommy tries to put the moves on Pat as they sit on a glider bench that Bogart and Ida Lupino allegedly had a romantic scene on. (I don’t know which movie that was in or even if it’s true. As far as I know, they only performed in two films together, and neither includes a love scene on a glider.) Pat ecstatically describes the scene in the movie and deftly turns it into a Cagney imitation, hijacking it back to the lyrics of her own song. The Level C illusion bleeds right into the Level A — Bogart and Lupino are both in Lucky Stars, and both play full-on against their noir-romantic types. The scene then smoothly slides into a good Schwartz-Loesser faux western tune, “Ridin’ for Fall,” which is pretty witty, but reaches comic sublimity. The song has already rhymed “trigger” and “figure,” but after Tommy sings “she’ll be spending my sugar,” there’s a snappy pause until Pat delivers: “you can’t rhyme sugar.” Well, they already did it twice, so sugar and rhyme must mean something else.
The next day: Farnsworth and Dr. Schlenna apprehensively head out to “Cantor’s” Beverly Hills compound to finagle Dinah Shore’s participation in their show without “Cantor’s.” I love this scene. It follows immediately after the Gower Gulch party, and it’s the full-on inverse of it. (Inverted symmetry check: daybright for nightdark, rich spread for hobo camp, business for romance and fun, house full of hard-pressed servants and underlings for a communal party, a corny old song forced on an unwilling audience for a happy spontaneous duet.) It astonishes me that the real Cantor could play what constitutes a brutal lampoon of himself with so much pleasure. Bosley Crowther, the famed New York Times film critic, was appalled at the time by the “masochism” of the performance — but that seems wrong-headed. It’s very funny and skilled. It’s nonetheless mysterious to me how someone can play such a cruel stereotype of himself — both of his retrograde screen image and his real-world reputation for aggressive egomania. It was probably even more stunning when the film was released and Cantor was still a major media star. Horton and Sakall are great as the sheepish producers, and for once Horton doesn’t overplay his double-takes. The acme, though, is Cantor forcing everyone to listen to “We’re Staying Home Tonight,” a Schwartz-Loesser tune that sounds exactly like one of Cantor’s signature vaudeville tunes of the 1920s that he even performs in his Follies style, obviously impossibly old fashioned in the swing era. All this is underscored by the backdrop, a then-contemporary house-of-the-stars spread. (From what I can tell — I’m not sure about this — it was filmed at Cantor’s own house. Recall that Joe/Cantor’s job has been to guide houses-of-the-stars tours. Well, we get a real good look at one.)
“Cantor” relents — but only after the producers agree to make him chairman of the project, which of course leads to near-disaster as “Cantor” takes over the stage direction, verbally abuses his dancers, and introduces elephants into the production. (There are more animals to come in the real action.) Farnsworth and Dr. Schlenna need a plan to distract him long enough to put the rehearsals right. (And recall that no one wants to work with Cantor — so even the existence of the star-studded show we’re about to see depends on getting him out of the way.) There’s no better plan than to seduce “Cantor” into telling his interminable self-aggrandizing life story, one of his favorite pastimes. Sandwiched in between is a hilarious parody of even older-than-Cantor-school vaudeville by Jack Carson and Alan Hale, another Schwartz-Loesser gem, “I’m Goin’ North,” that makes broad fun of “I’m Goin’ South,” a ludicrous Dixie-nostalgia hit for Al Jolson in the mid-1920s.
The routine is immediately followed by a fine Alice Faye-style number by Ann Sheridan. The Schwartz-Loesser tunes in Lucky Stars are all good. They clearly were tasked to write songs not for specific singers (Sheridan and Bette Davis had no track record as singers), but specific styles. So by this point we’ve already had a faux cowboy song and a vaudeville goof. Sheridan’s song, “Love Isn’t Born, It’s Made,” is the jazzy sassy gold digger dame song. It’s terrific. I’m in awe of it, especially Loesser’s lyrics. He’s at his peak here. I’m surprised that so few singers have covered it.
Love isn’t born
On a beautiful April morn,
Love isn’t born,
It’s made.
And that’s why ev’ry window has a window-shade.
Love can’t do much
For a couple who don’t quite touch;
Love needs a chance
To advance.
And that’s why folks who never care for dancing, dance.
So, my precious young dove,
If you’re waiting for love,
Better make the most of your charms,
‘Cause the feeling won’t start
In the gentleman’s heart
Till you’re in the gentleman’s arms.
Love isn’t born,
That’s a fable to treat with scorn,
Let’s call a spade
A spade.
When he says, “Dear, come up and see my antique jade,”
Remember, love isn’t born, it’s made.
Love has to climb,
It’s can’t suddenly ring that chime;
Time, sister, time
Is short.
You’ll find there’s no partition in a davenport.
Love doesn’t act
Till the cards are extremely stacked;
Here is a fact
To face:
A man won’t take a taxi just to get no place.
So, my precious young dove,
If you’re dreaming of love,
Better lead him into the trap,
For you’ll never remain
On the gentleman’s brain
Till you’re on the gentleman’s lap.
Love won’t exist
If you constantly slap that wrist;
Right off his list
You’ll fade.
So don’t go crying wolf at ev’ry gay young blade,
And when you walk alone and forlorn
And then you hear a Cadillac horn,
Remember, love isn’t born,
It’s made.
Decency League, were you asleep?
This is followed by a cute routine between Pat and Tommy around another Schwartz-Loesser tune, “No Me, No You.” It’s not particularly special, but it’s clear that Loesser is on a rhyming binge and director Butler is all in. After the earlier joke about rhyming sugar, I really like how this song ends with the cash register delivering the close-up-the-shop final rhyme.
The gags and tricks come thick and fast — there’s a sweet scene of Dr. Schlenna browbeating Bogart in his thug persona until he skulks away in shame –, all heading toward The Big Solution.
By kidnapping “Cantor,” hustling him off the scene, and replacing him with Joe, who will pretend to be him, the show will be saved and Joe will get his acting debut. Accordingly, some of Joe’s Gower Gulch movie cowboys dress up as Indians and offer to initiate “Cantor” as a Chief. No egomaniac could resist such an offer.
And the show does go on.
Joe cleans up nice and makes his appearance. Farnsworth and Dr. Schlenna, unable to detect any difference, are amazed at how amenable “Cantor” has become. And we get a dress rehearsal of what is probably the best known segment of the film, Hattie McDaniels, Willie Best, and full Harlem review cast doing Schwartz and Loesser’s “Ice Cold Katy.” Everything about this routine is perfect for me. The ensemble performance, the arrangement, and above all, the orchestra. As with most of the Black review segments of the period, it has been set off in a way that it could be removed from the film for racist southern movie houses.
As a side note, Ice Cold Katy is not just a superlatively cool name, it was adopted as the nickname of a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber in the following year, and sported the appropriate nose art.
Back to work. The show goes on. “Cantor” manages to get free (it’s complicated), and escapes his fake Indian kidnappers by entering a hospital. His story is unconvincing enough that the resident doctors decide he’s a good candidate for a straitjacket and a lobotomy. Meanwhile at the theater, Dinah Shore sings a syrupy song (“How Sweet You Are”), with the requisite southern-belles-with-uniformed-officer-attendants-grand-ball number. (I’m not a fan — I can see why Shore didn’t get a job fronting a swing band. Sans sass.) The routine is followed by one of the great anti-type routines in the review comedy corpus. Olivia de Havilland and Ida Lupino (conjured up earlier as a steamy romantic) bookend George Tobias in a jive version of “The Dreamer,” a tune that Shore had sung earlier as a sentimental hayseed. I particularly love Lupino’s goofing — she was never known for her comedy, she was the quintessential thinking noir brunette. Too bad. She might have been a great screwball comedienne.
A couple of historically odd set pieces follow — Erroll Flynn in a fake cockney pub routine:
And Bette Davis doing an iffy performance of a great Schwartz-Loesser wartime dame lament, “They’re Either Too Young or Too Old.” It’s pretty universally acknowledged that Davis did not know how to deliver a song or a dance. (The account of her jitterbug moment is famous — she wanted to be treated by her partner — a lindy professional — like an experienced dancer, which she was not; he did, she got tossed around like a bag of peat, and banged her leg, but they kept the take because she refused to do another one.)
This is another terrific rhyme-crazy set of Loesser lyrics. Unlike “Love Isn’t Born, It’s Made,” this one had a rich afterlife. Jimmy Dorsey recorded it in the same year with Kitty Kallen, and Rosemary Clooney has a version in the ’90s with Scott Hamilton on tenor.
They’re either too young, or too old
They’re either too gray or too grassy green
The pickings are poor and the crop is lean
What’s good is in the army
What’s left will never harm me
They’re either too old or too young
So, darling, you’ll never get stung
Tomorrow I’ll go hiking with that Eagle Scout unless
I get a call from grandpa for a snappy game of chess
I’ll never, never fail ya
While you are in Australia
Or off among the Rooshians
And flying over Egypt
Your heart will never be gypped
And when you get to India
I’ll still be what I’ve been to ya
I’ve looked the field over
And lo and behold
They’re either too young or too old
They’re either too bald or too bold
I’m down to the wheelchair and bassinet
My heart just refuses to get upset
I simply can’t compel it to
With no Marine to tell it to
I’m either their first breath of spring
Or else, I’m their last little fling
I either get a fossil or an adolescent pup
I either have to hold him off
Or have to hold him up
The battle is on, but the fortress will hold
They’re either too young or too old.
Back on Illusion Level B, “Cantor” manages to escape from the lobotomy bed and get to the theater in time to encounter Joe face-to-face, the first time in the film that the two are in the same frame, thanks to optical editing f/x. The meta is at peak. There’s a classic test to decide who the real “Cantor” is. It doesn’t go well for the real “Cantor.” (Semi-final level check: the real Eddie Cantor is now split on screen between “Cantor” and Joe, and the plot test is to determine which one is the “real ‘Cantor.'” The quote marks are getting out of hand.) “Cantor” angrily vows to be in the show as he is removed from the scene by the cops, and aggressively asserts to Joe: “you, I can kill.” Which I guess he does, since Joe/Cantor never appears in the movies again. And of course Cantor is in the show, playing Joe.
Comes the grand finale and all the major tunes and stars reprise their songs in a spectacular medley. The big meta-joke now is that Joe performs “We’re Staying Home Tonight,” the silly song that “Cantor” had forced his staff to applaud, exactly as “Cantor” — and Cantor — would have done it. Level check: so Joe, who has been prevented from serious acting because of his resemblance to Cantor gets his big break performing as a perfect imitation of “Cantor”/Cantor. Cantor = “Cantor” = Joe. Level A = Level B = Level C. QED.
Thank Your Lucky Stars needs more love, and Frank-Panama scripts need more respect. QED.