Just perfect...

How sad is this?

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Fred MacMurray plays a guy who wants to do his patriotic duty and join the Army but he's 4F so they won't take him. To make matters worse, the girl he loves (June Haver) only dates soldiers. One night Fred frees a genie from a lamp and the genie grants him wishes in return. He wishes to be in the Army but the genie misunderstands and sends him back in time to join the Army of George Washington. From there, Fred bounces around in time to earlier points in American history where he sails with Columbus, buys Manhattan from Anthony Quinn, and hangs around with Dutch settlers who talk like Yoda. Well this was an interesting little gem I'd never heard of. It's a pleasant Technicolor musical comedy with songs by Ira Gershwin and Kurt Weill. Fred MacMurray is amiable and easygoing. Joan Leslie is lovable as the girl best friend that is, of course, perfect for Fred but he doesn't see it yet. June Haver does fine in a role that would be easy to hate in a more serious movie. Fred and June met while making this and were later married. The songs are cute but nothing terribly impressive. Wait until you see MacMurray dance. Don't quit your day job, Fred! The Christopher Columbus operetta is probably the highlight. Enjoyable wartime fantasy that's very light and charming. Fun but never quite as good as it seems like it could be. Still, if you're a fan of the stars or old-school musicals you should like it.

If you haven't seen this obscure little charmer, you should seek it out. It is the story of a bumbling, wartime Sad Sack (Fred MacMurray) who is listed 4-F each time he attempts to join any branch of the military. He finds a magic lamp which of course contains a genie (Gene Sheldon), but the genie is even more bumbling than MacMurray is, sending him across time to serve in all the wrong times and places than the one he wants. It is cute, cheerful, and pure fluff, and you can't help but like it. The plots is much like a Disney film, particularly since the two stars (MacMurray and Sheldon) both made numerous Disney films in the 50's and 60's, although not together. Needless to say, it all ends well for everyone, and the viewer goes away feeling pretty good.

This film is from 1945, in gorgeous (but a little too dark in the night-time scenes) Technicolor, with songs by Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin! It's a war-time pageant and everyone wants to get in the army, and a genie appears to help Fred MacMurray do a "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" entry into various times of American history. Anthony Quinn is funny as a street-smart Indian, and I never realized how gorgeous June Haver and Joan Leslie were. So-so songs and a terrible title explain how unknown this goofy film is. Gregory Ratoff was evidentially a better actor (Symphony for Six Million) than a director, but at 77 minutes this film is worth your time, especially if you like musicals. Nice to look at, and the choreography is pretty amusing.

Look at the number of actors on the IMDB cast list who had their scenes deleted (Roy Rogers, yet!), and you'll smell trouble: It's not typical for a big, expensive Technicolor wartime musical like this one to clock in under 80 minutes. Sure enough, it's a disjointed, haphazard musical fantasy, though full of talented people behind the scenes, notably Ira Gershwin and Kurt Weill. The songwriters bring a little pep to the story of a 4-F wannabe soldier who finds a magic lamp inhabited by an inept genie, who keeps putting him into the wrong century. The historic events visited feel terribly random -- the American Revolution, Columbus' voyage, Puritan New England -- and make one curious about what sequences were omitted. It's a cute idea -- the screenwriters, Morrie Ryskind and Sig Herzig, were Broadway veterans, and one suspects they originally conceived this as a stage musical -- but it's spun out with little real wit, and an aggressively uninteresting supporting cast fails to mine the minimal humor in the script. MacMurray, normally not a song-and-dance man, reveals a pleasant baritone but hasn't much to play, and he looks distinctly uncharmed by either of his leading ladies, though he did in fact marry June Haver. There's one celebrated sequence, a 10-minute mini-opera-bouffe called "The Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria," where Bill (MacMurray) convinces Columbus' crew not to mutiny, since America needs to be discovered. (A wonderful couplet describing America's bounty was disallowed by the censors: "The girls are delightful/ Their sweaters are quite full.") Suddenly the whimsy takes off, and the singing's splendid, and the film feels as bizarre and pixilated as "The Wizard of Oz." It doesn't last, though, and then it's back to 20th Century Fox's back lot and more halfhearted jests about history and patriotism. A try at something different, certainly, in an age where Hollywood musicals were mainly backstagers, and it has its moments. But mostly it's a missed opportunity. If the missing footage ever turns up, it might be worth looking at.