Always Leave Them Laughing

I've got several films from Ruth Roman's time as TCM's Star of the Month that I didn't get to until just before they expired from the DVR. Now, she wasn't exactly the star in all of them; in some she played a supporting role such as in Always Leave Them Laughing.

The star here is Milton Berle, playing a man named Kip Cooper who, as the movie opens, has a successful thing going in the very new medium of television (the movie was released in 1949, and it's a bit surprising to see a movie studio talk openly about television this early in the game). A young man who thinks he's got the goods to become a star himself shows up at the studio, hoping to audition for Kip or his agent, or at least get the agent's advice. As you might guess, this leads to the inevitable flashback.

Kip is a vaudeville-type performer, although these are the days when vaudeville is beginning to die and the idea of comedians taking their show to the Borscht Belt or nightclubs in other vacation results isn't going to be that far behind, not that they quite realized it in the 1940s. Kip has talent, but he doesn't have material. Instead, he recycles old stuff without actually doing impressions. It's the sort of thing that's part of the reason why Kip is stuck in crummy third-rate theaters.

One day, Kip meets Fay (that's Ruth Roman), whose parents had been in vaudeville, and whose act Kip remembers and can more or less do from memory. He keeps auditioning for shows, and eventually gets a job that should well suit him. He was hoping for the lead, but doesn't get it due to nepotism; instead, his ability to learn everybody else's shtick makes him a perfect understudy. But it's also a part that's going to take him out on the road, keeping him away from Fay. And his continued insistence on not coming up with original material is never going to help his career.

Fay, meanwhile, is able to get a job in a show with a real star as a headliner, Eddie Egan (Bert Lahr). The show goes well until poor Eddie suffers a massive heart attack. But! Kip actually knows Eddie's old material to the point that he could have been an understudy to Eddie all along. It's because of this that he's able to fill in for Eddie, and make the show a success. But there are two problems. One is that Eddie is planning on returning at some point. The other is that Eddie has a wife Nancy (Virginia Mayo) who has a financial interest in making certain that the show must go on.

Still, we know that Kip is going to wind up with a TV show of his own, so how do we get there from here? For that, you're going to have to see the rest of Always Leave Them Laughing.

Milton Berle isn't exactly my favorite, and once again, Always Leave Them Laughing is the sort of material that feels like it would have been dated even when the movie was released back in 1949. Still, when Berle is called upon not to be the comic, he actually does have some acting ability in him. For me, it isn't quite enough to save the movie. Always Leave Them Laughing isn't terrible, but it's not memorable either.