On paper, On the Avenue looks like a great classical Hollywood musical. All the songs are by Irving Berlin. It’s directed by Roy Del Ruth, an unsung master of the genre. It stars Dick Powell, Alice Faye, and Madeleine Carroll. The script is by two good writers, Gene Markey and William Conselman. Lucien Andriot wasContinue reading “On the Avenue (1937)”
Monthly Archives: January 2021
Folies Bergère de Paris (1935)
Folies Bergère de Paris has become one of my favorite musical comedies of the period. It was Maurice Chevalier’s last American film before the end of World War II, and it’s one of his best. At the moment, I’d place it up there with Love Me Tonight. I’ve always taken Chevalier in small doses. HisContinue reading “Folies Bergère de Paris (1935)”
Sally, Irene and Mary (1938)
The 1938 version of Sally, Irene and Mary is nominally a remake of a famous but hard to get silent musical made in 1925. The original starred Constance Bennett, Joan Crawford, and Sally O’Neil as the title characters. That original is a well made and visually interesting comedy/melodrama, directed by the legendary Edmund Goulding, andContinue reading “Sally, Irene and Mary (1938)”
Thanks a Million (1935)
Thanks A Million is, like most of the Dick Powell comedies of the mid-1930s, a pip, a perfect example of a neglected gem. It fits somewhere on the line of Depression-era political satire-comedies that stretches from Washington Merry-Go-Round (1932) to The Devil and Miss Jones (1941). In many respects it follows the template of theContinue reading “Thanks a Million (1935)”
College Coach (1933)
William “Wild Bill” Wellman’s College Coach is a bona fide piece of work — and not in a good way. It’s an exceedingly strange comedy about a college whose trustees decide that they can save the school from financial ruin only by perking up its loser football program by hiring a notoriously shady, publicity-hound coach-to-the-highest-bidder,Continue reading “College Coach (1933)”