SAN ANTONIO ROSE. Universal, 1941. Robert Paige, Eve Arden, Jane Frazee, Lon Chaney, Jr., Shemp Howard, Luis Alberni, Richard Lane, and The Merry Macs (Mary Lou Cook, Joe McMichael, Ted McMichael, Judd McMichael). Director: Charles Lamont. Shown at Cinecon 40, Hollywood CA, September 2004.

   Eve Arden and Jane Frazee are out-of-work performers who arrive at a supper club on the night it’s forced to close by a rival who hopes to revive his own dying club with his competition shut down.

   With no place to go (and no money), the two stay on in the abandoned club, and when a band headed by Robert Paige (less than memorable as the somnambulistic non-dead male lead of Son of Dracula) shows up to fulfill an engagement, the girls propose their version of “Let’s put on a show” by reopening the club.

   Chaney and Howard, dim-bulb minions of the rival club owner, are sent in to sabotage the opening. However, their attempts at sabotage are turned into unintentional parts of the floor show by the enterprising new owners and the boys are soon sent flying through a window.

   A bright 63 minute effort with the audience particularly enjoying the smooth singing of the once popular Merry Macs (with surviving relatives in the audience). Chaney and Howard make a fine comedy team and this was a tuneful and entertaining complement to the more ambitious (and no more entertaining) Crosby vehicle seen (and reviewed) just before.