As this is one of the projects that young David Selznick did as a producer for Radio pictures before moving on to MGM and his own production company, it's shocking to think that this man (somehow universally celebrated for his taste) could have taken the great 1930 Broadway musical featuring Ethel Merman and Ginger Rogers and reduced it to a Wheeler & Woolsey slapstick comedy; in the process, Selznick eliminated most of its great Gershwin songs among them "Bidin' My Time" and "Embraceable You" and treated the other immortal tunes like "But Not For Me" as novelty numbers. An appalling example of how old Hollywood didn't recognize genius when it stared it in the face.
Review of Girl Crazy
