Sadly Over-hyped

Fresh and Exciting

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The Andrews Sisters are lift operators and are the only reason to watch this film. Their first 2 songs in particular are very good but they can't save the film from the assembled cast who are all terrible. The leading man, song publisher Robert Paige (George) shouts his way through dialogue at breakneck speed and Shemp Howard (Alf) is an embarrassment. The film tries to be funny and fails.Robert Paige keeps taking showers in his office. Not in a bathroom to the side of his office, but in the actual room. And he never locks the door for this. Shemp Howard likes to come into the office when Paige is taking a shower. He loves doing this. He also loves to annoy Patty Andrews by being very unfunny throughout the film.Bobby Scheerer who is about 12 years old does some dancing, Buddy Rich does some drumming, and the film ends with a flag-waving tribute to the Navy. In between, there is a story about song-writing and Paige being sued for plagiarism. It's mainly an annoying film, though, saved by the 3 sisters and their singing.

It's not romantic "Bliss" for songwriter Robert Paige and calender poem writer Grace McDonald (aka Marion Bliss) when she is manipulated into suing him for using one of her little ditties in his song. In fact, it's really only the use of one word he's being sued over, so to pacify her, he hires her as a songwriter. Romance ensues and jealousies break them up which results in her bringing back her suit. So it's up to elevator girls the Andrews Sisters (in association with his delightfully wise-cracking secretary Mary Wickes and office boy Bobby Scheerer) to get rid of the trouble in paradise, expose Paige's rival David Bruce for having cajoled McDonald in the first place) and bring the happy couple back together.In the mere running time of an hour, the Andrews Sisters get to sing five songs with Patty getting more running time thanks to a running gag that has process server Shemp Howard romancing her (and getting slapped down each time) and ultimately give a patriotic finale that comes out of nowhere. There's also a very funny pairing of Scheerer and Wickes having rhythmic banter, flirting with each other ("It's you Bobby, I ain't snobby", Wickes replies as he ogles her) and the recurring gag of Paige being interrupted by Howard every time he takes a shower in his office! The big band sounds of Buddy Rich and his orchestra add to the fun which makes this "B" entry a lot of fun.

A-okay WWII musical featuring a very loose plot strung together with loads of snappy patter and enjoyable song numbers done by the Andrews Sisters. They appear as three elevator operators at a music company where a song publisher (who likes to take showers at the office!) has just been sued by a cutesy blonde for stealing her calendar "poem" for use as music lyrics. In order to get the lawsuit canceled, he hires her as a song writer - which she proves to have zero skill at doing (but he romances her anyway). Shemp Howard appears as a side character who fancies but is set down again and again by Patty Andrews with some rather mean one-liners - but his continual pursuit of her actually succeeds (why does this kind of aggressive pursuit of women always seem to result in success in the movies, though is seemingly unrealistic in real-life?!). There are some additional entertaining musical numbers in this film featuring Buddy Rich and His Orchestra as well as a thirteen-year old named Bobby Scheerer who is very pleasing as he plays a tap dancing office boy (he appeared in person at a screening of this last week at Cinecon 43 in Hollywood). As a whole this film is lightly entertaining, peppy fun.