At least it's got Carmen Miranda

One of the lesser musicals of the 1940s is showing up tomorrow morning at 9:00 AM ET on the Fox Movie Channel: Greenwich Village.

Don Ameche stars as Ken Harvey, a composer of "serious" music who comes to early 1920s New York City in an attempt to sell his music and get it performed by a real orchestra. However, he finds this isn't as easy as he thought, and winds up meeting Dan O'Mara, who runs the local snightclub in Grenwich Village. It's fortuitous in a way for both of them: Harvey meets the club's singer, Bonnie Watson (played by Vivian Blaine), while O'Mara finds a rich new source of music for his singer, and for the more elaborate stage show he'd like to put on. Of course, Harvey doesn't know what O'Mara plans to do with his music....

I've admitted in the past that I'm not a huge fan of musicals, and it's movies like Greenwich Village that are a good example of why. The plot seems like it's been done a hundred times before (compare, for example, Ken Harvey to Dick Powell's character in Gold Diggers of 1933); there's not enough realistic romantic tension; and Vivian Blaine shows why she never really became a big star. I suppose there are some nice things, such as the use of the vintage music, and an appearance from Carmen Miranda, who here plays a character born in Buffalo, New York, of all places!

Still, if you like classic studio musicals, especially if they're in Technicolor, you might like Greenwich Village. That, and Carmen Miranda. It doesn't seem to have made it to DVD yet, though, so you're going to have to catch the Fox Movie Channel showing.