Scared Stiff

Jerry Lewis was part of TCM's Summer Under the Stars this past August, and that gave me the chance to record a bunch of his movies that I hadn't seen before, since the ones they selected were mostly not the ones on my Jerry Lewis box set. So I'll be going through them over the next year or so. Next up is Scared Stiff.

Scared Stiff is one of the movies Lewis made when he was still part of a comedy team with Dean Martin, and we see Dean Martin first, as nightclub singer Larry Todd. Except that we don't see Martin right away either. Instead, there's an introductory scene of a waiter at the club being approached by a gangster's henchman because the waiter has been seeing the gangster Shorty's girlfriend Rosie (Dorothy Malone). When Larry enters the club, however, we learn that he too has been seeing Rosie. As for Jerry Lewis, he plays Myron Mertz, a busboy at the club which is a good way for Lewis to do physical comedy with food before a routine with Myron, Larry, and Rosie.

After the routine, Myron meets Larry in Larry's dressing room, and informs him of the waiter who was taken away by the gangster for being with a chorus girl, at which point Larry finds out that Rosie is a gangster's moll. Larry leaves he club in a panic, and Shorty calls Larry's dressing room only to get Myron. Myron decides he'll do a favor for Larry by going to the hotel where Larry has been summoned and confronting Shorty in Larry's stead.

Also at the hotel, and on the same floor as the gangsters, is Mary Carroll (Lizabeth Scott). She's spending her last night at the hotel before taking a cruise down to Cuba. She has an inheritance there, and it's an entire island with a castle. However, there's no electricity on the island, and there are rumors that the castle is haunted or something, since nobody's spent a full night in the castle in 20 years. Mary also draws the ire of Shorty by making a joke about murder during a power outage.

A gunfight ensues between one of Shorty's henchmen and a man trying to buy the castle from Mary. Larry is in the hallway trying to save Myron and has a gun of his own, and since he drew it he fears he might be arrested for murder. He escapes into one of the hotel rooms, which happens to be Mary's. He hides, but it's in Mary's trunk, which by the time the police are finished with their investigation has already been sent to the pier. So Myron and Mary go to the pier, and as you can guess, a comedy of errors occurs that results in Myron and Larry winding up on the cruise after it's set sail. Thanks to their comedy stylings, they're able to work their way to Havana, meeting singer Carmelita (Carmen Miranda in her final film role).

Larry and Mary fall in love along the way, and when they and Myron get to the island, they find out that someone has a reason for wanting to buy the castle from Mary, although they haven't quite yet figured out what that reason is. But since this is a comedy, you can guess that everything is going to be wrapped up with a happy ending.

Scared Stiff was based on an old Bob Hope comedy called The Ghost Breakers, which I have on my Bob Hope box set but have not yet seen. As such, I can't compare the two movies to see whether the remake is that much worse; any number of reviewers suggest that The Ghost Breakers is a better movie. As for standing on it's own, I'd say that Scared Stiff isn't that bad a movie, but some of the other Martin/Lewis pairings I've seen are better. Perhaps The Ghost Breakers just wasn't the best material to adapt to the strengths of Martin and Lewis.

Down Argentine Way

For some reason, I thought Down Argentine Way was available on DVD courtesy of Fox's MOD scheme. It's not as far as I can tell, but it turns out there is a standalone DVD that's probably out of print because you can get it at Amazon but not the TCM Shop. Amazon also does the streaming video thing, and there's also a four-film Betty Grable set that is apparently in print, as it's available from both Amazon and the TCM Shop.

Although the movie is in a Betty Grable box set, it's actually Don Ameche who gets top billing and shows up first. He's Ricardo Quintana, an Argentine and son of Don Diego, a wealthy horse breeder. Don Diego is looking to sell some of his horses in the US, and sends Ricardo there to handle the sales. Get the highest price, but with one caveat: don't sell to Willis Crawford (Edward Fielding), who apparently screwed Don Diego over while the two were at boarding school in Paris ages ago, or any member of his family.

While in America, Ricardo meets the beautiful Glenda (Betty Grable). He falls in love with her, and she with him, as well as with one of the horses he's selling. However, there's one catch. Glenda's last name is Crawford: she's Willis' daughter. No sale.

Glenda is determined to get that horse, and frankly determined to get Ricardo as well, so she follows Ricardo back to Argentina, accompanied by her aunt Binnie (Charlotte Greenwood). The usual complications ensue. One further complication is that Don Diego's horses only do show-jumping, ever since one of his beloved horses died in a flat track race 15 years earlier. Ricardo and Glenda decide to train Don Diego's current favorite for the big flat track race.

The plot of Down Argentine Way is silly and predictable, and you know where it's going. But there are still good reasons to watch it. Charlotte Greenwood provided support in several Fox musicals of the 1940s, notably this one and The Gang's All Here, and she's got a great high kick for musical numbers and pretty good comic timing. More noteworthy would be the Hollywood debut of Carmen Miranda. She was still under contract at a New York nightclub at the time of production, so Fox had to film her scenes in New York and then splice them into the movie. That's probably why she only shows up as a musical performer, with just two or three songs. The one you'll most recognize is "South American Way", which is sung by the two daughters in Mildred Pierce as well.

Also appearing for the musical numbers are the Nicholas brothers, doing one of their dance routines including cringe-inducing splits for those of us who aren't quite as flexible as the brothers. Since they were black, the numbers have fairly obvious cutting points where exhibitors in the South could snip to remove the scene so that white audiences wouldn't have to see it.

To be honest, there's nothing in Down Argentine Way that movie buffs haven't seen in any number of other movies. But it's still solid entertainment, and anybody who likes the early 1940s musicals or romance movies will certainly enjoy it.

Doll Face

Last year, I bought a Carmen Miranda box set off of Amazon. (For some reason, this set doesn't seem to be available from the TCM Shop. But it's also avaialable on Amazon streaming for those who do that thing, and for free if you've got a Prime membership.) One of the movies on it I hadn't seen before is Doll Face, so I finally watched it over the weekend.

Vivian Blaine plays Doll Face, real name Mary Elizabeth Carroll. In the opening scene she's auditioning for a play to be produced by Flo Hartman (Reed Hadley), but one of Flo's assistants recognizes her as Doll Face. This is important because Doll Face is a burlesque star, and Flo wants respectable, cultured stars. This pisses off both her and her fiancé Mike (Dennis O'Keefe), who also produced the burlesque show. (He pronounces "burlesque" as "burly-Q".) But Mike gets an idea when he buys something and gets a free book as part of the purchase. Why not have Doll Face tell her life story, except that the book will be ghostwritten for her!

It's a wacky idea, but this is a movie, so why not try it? The only thing they have to lose is some money. So Mike contacts Fred Gerard (Stephen Dunne), the author of the book he got, and while Fred is initially resistant to the idea, he eventually decides to take it on. All goes well, or so it seems. Fred and Doll Face have to spend a lot of time together on the book project, which leads Mike to fear that the two are falling in love with each other.

The book becomes a success, leading Flo to decide to produce a show based on the book starring Doll Face. The only problem is, by this time, Mike has broken off the relationship, convinced that Doll Face is involved with Fred, and Doll Face responds by actually starting a relationship with Fred for real. And Doll Face is none too happy with the idea that Mike should be an integral character in the show. After all, Mike only discovered Doll Face and made her who she is.

You'll notice that even though I watched this off a DVD in a Carmen Miranda box set, I haven't mentioned her yet. That's because this is a slightly atypical role for her. She only gets one musical number, in the last 15 minutes as part of the Broadway play of Doll Face's life. Other than that, she's playing almost an Eve Arden type, a wisecracking but wise woman named Chita Chula who understands that Mike is really the right guy for Doll Face and tries to make things right between the two. She also gets one of the best scenes in the movie. When Mike is discussing the idea of everybody in the burlesque show getting parts in the Broadway show, he tells Chita that she could become the next Carmen Miranda. Chita is none too pleased about it, disparaging the Carmen Miranda stereotype.

On the whole, Doll Face is competently produced, but it's among the least memorable of all the Fox musicals I've seen. (If I'm Lucky, which I reviewed nearly five years ago and which is also on this set, might be even lower on the Fox musical scale.) Part of that is because of the lesser cast, headed by Blaine. The second couple subplot goes to Perry Como and Martha Stewart the actress and is also forgettable, other than a running gag about beating your girlfriend because women like that. There's also the fact that Carmen only gets the one number, with the other numbers being blah. Finally, it's in black and white. It's not bad; it's just absolutely nothing special.

For the price of the Miranda box set, I'm glad to have seen this movie. Fans of Fox's musicals will probably like it too. And for the price on Amazon streaming, it wouldn't be too expensive either. But I'm not certain I'd consider it good enough ever to buy it on a standalone DVD, certainly not if it were released on Fox's MOD scheme.

Something for the Boys

One of my recent DVD purchases was a Carmen Miranda box set, and among the movies on it I hadn't reviewed here before is Something For the Boys.

Carmen here plays Chiquita Hart, a defense plant worker in Indiana at the start of the movie -- you can tell this is one of those World War II movies. She's one of three Hart cousins, the other two being showgirl Blossom (Vivian Blaine) and schemer Harry (Phil Silvers), which makes you wonder about the family tree if these three are married to each other. (Well, they're cousins, so various siblings a generation above could just have married oddly.) Anyhow, the three all find out that their grandfather has died, leaving them an inheritance! Chiquita, for her part, finds out through radio broadcasts she receives because working at the defense plant has left just the right combination of metal residue in her dental work or something; it's a running joke used later in the movie.

Anyhow, the three cousins who don't know each other at the start of the movie have to travel down to Georgia to receive their inheritance, as Grandpa had one of those big old plantation houses. And when I say old, I mean old, as it's fallen on hard times and sorely in need of a renovation. And there's no money for that; they've only inherited the house. But they're in luck. The house is near an army base, and Sgt. Fulton (Michael O'Shea) comes over from the base to visit. Everybody gets the idea that the house would be a perfect place for soldiers' wives to stay so they can be close to their husbands while they're at the base. It's an income stream for the cousins, and a win win for the soldiers and their wives. Plus, the soldiers can do the work fixing up the place. And, unsurprisingly, Sgt. Fulton and Blossom fall in love along the way.

But there are complications. Sgt. Fulton has a girl in his past, Melanie (Sheila Ryan). He's probably willing to dump her, since she seems to be really high-maintenance, but she thinks she's his fiancée, and dammit, she's going to run everything in everybody's life. She gets to the manor and decides it's hers, trying to tell the cousins what they should be doing. Why they don't just throw her out of the place then and there makes no sense, but Melanie does more or less disappear toward the end. The other complication is that the place gets declared off-limits to the soldiers because Harry is running a craps game, and then the army wants to use it for war games.

In and among all this, there are a lot of musical numbers, although they're the sort of songs that for the most part aren't memorable. Perry Como plays one of the singing soldiers, which should tell you something about the songs. And the plot is a bit of a mess too. Finally, it doesn't help that the Phil Silvers character is constantly irritating.

The DVD itself, however, is a lovely transfer, with very nice Technicolor. This particular DVD has a couple of trailers, one with scenes from the movie and one with just title cards. There's also a Carmen Miranda documentary that I haven't watched. The cover art, however, leaves something to be desired, as the blurb on the back mentions a song I didn't hear, and claims that the house is in Texas, when it's clearly in Georgia. One of the songs is even titled "Eighty Miles Outside of Atlanta", for heaven's sake.

I picked up the box set for The Gang's All Here, figuring that everything else would be a bonus. Something for the Boys isn't quite my thing, but people who like World War II musicals will probably enjoy it.