Sun 6 Sep 2009
A Movie Review by Walter Albert: HELLO, FRISCO, HELLO (1943).
Posted by Steve under Films: Comedy/Musicals , Reviews[4] Comments
HELLO, FRISCO, HELLO. 20th Century Fox, 1943, Alice Faye, John Payne, Jack Oakie, Lynn Bari, Laird Cregar, June Havoc, Ward Bond. Dances staged by Val Raset and Hermes Pan; musical sequences supervised by Fanchon. “You’ll Never Know,” music and lyrics by Mack Gordon & Harry Warren. Director: H. Bruce Humberstone. Shown at Cinevent 41, Columbus OH, May 2009.
“You’ll Never Know” won the Oscar for best song and the movie was Fox’s biggest hit of 1943. John Payne is Johnny Cornell, hot-shot small-time musical promoter, whose greatest asset is his long-suffering girlfriend and talented performer Trudy Evans (Alice Faye), with Dan Daley (Jack Oakie) and Beulah Clancy (June Havoc) filling out the quartet of long-time friends and fellow vaudevillians whose stories are the core of this sumptuous, plushy musical.
Lynn Bari is the society dame who can offer Johnny everything he’s always wanted, wealth and position, everything but love, and without giving away any more of the plot, I’m sure you can tell how the film will end.
I always liked Alice Faye, but I was never a great fan of the Fox musicals, which failed to satisfy me in the way the Astaire-Rogers and MGM musicals did.
The movie made me wish that I had not missed the screening earlier that day of Nice Girl? (Universal, 1941), with a cast that included Deanna Durbin, Franchot Tone, Walter Brennan, Robert Stack, Robert Benchley, and Helen Broderick, a comedy with music that, by all the accounts I heard of it, had the charm and light touch that Hello, Frisco, Hello, for all its top-flight production values and talented cast, showed no trace of.
And if you say that I’m comparing apples and oranges, you’re probably right. Let’s just say that I prefer the pungent taste of apples to the pulpy texture of oranges.
September 7th, 2009 at 3:29 am
Isn’t Nice Girl? Durbin’s first screen kiss from then young Robert Stack — a big deal at the time.
I like Hello Frisco Hello, one of a long line of similar films that usually starred Faye or Betty Grable and leads like Tyrone Power, Victor Mature, and Payne.
It lacked the lustre of an MGM musical or the energy of the RKO Astaire and Rodgers films, but it looked great, the music was good, and there often seemed to be some real effort to tell a story and give the actors a bit of a chance to show their skills. Sets and costumes alone were worth seeing.
September 7th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Deanna Durbin’s first kiss was in FIRST LOVE (1939), but you’re right about it being Robert Stack. He was only 20 at the time himself, and it was his first movie.
It’s nice that they teamed the pair up again in NICE GIRL?, probably not by accident!
September 7th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Never was a Durbin fan, but she was fine in the noirish Lady on a Train based on the book by Leslie Charteris (who co-wrote the screenplay).
September 8th, 2009 at 3:57 am
My folks were crazy about Deanna Durbin. She did have a lovely voice, and could really sing. When her films came out on video, I used to rent them for family movie nights.
Before he became Untouchable, Robert Stack had a very different image, as a patrician well-bred man from a good family, with good manners. Stack was very nice as Deanna’s beau.
My favorite Durbin film is IT STARTED WITH EVE. This is a delightful comedy, very joyous.