Pal Joey

I've said on several occasions that musicals are not my favorite genre. One of the movies that's a good example of my thoughts on the genre is Pal Joey.

Frank Sinatra stars as the titular Joey, that being Joey Evans, a man who got booted out of San Francisco's Barbary Coast nightclub scene for, well, reasons. Some time later, he shows up back in San Francisco, in need of a job. Fortunately for him, his old friend Ned Galvin (Bobby Sherwood) plays piano for the band at the club Joey walks into. The MC has failed to show up for the evening's show, probably for having drunk too much. So Joey decides to be assertive, going up on stage and taking the part of the MC, singing a song and even dancing with the chorus girls in one of the numbers!

One of those chorus girls is Linda English (Kim Novak), he immediately develops feelings for her, although those feelings are not exactly mutual. Indeed, Joey wangles his way into getting a room next to Linda's at her rooming house, and continuing to pursue her.

The band is asked to do a show at a party put on by wealthy widow Vera Simpson (Rita Hayworth). Joey recognizes her as a former chorus girl who did a striptease act on stage. Joey even blackmails her into doing the act under the guise of raising money for the charity auction that Vera has been holding at her party. But Joey realizes Vera has two things he could use: class, and money. Joey has dreamed of opening up his own nightclub, and here's a woman who could help him achieve that goal.

So Joey is trying to pursue two different women, and neither one is particularly happy about Joey's relationship with the other woman. It gets to the point that Vera agrees to fund the club, but when she learns about Joey's relationship with Linda, she says she won't let the club open unless Linda is sent packing.

Pal Joey is filled with the songs of Rodgers and Hart, and some of the songs are quite good. However, they aren't from the original Broadway musical of Pal Joey; I immediately knew that "I Didn't Know What Time it Was" comes from Too Many Girls. Some of the songs slow the proceedings down way too much. And then there's the ending, which really struck me as untrue.

On the other hand, a lot of people will like Frank Sinatra's singing (Hayworth and Novak, of course, were dubbed), and the songs as a whole. It's just that they're in the service of an inane plot that doesn't quite work. Still, as alwys, judge for yourself.