'Moonlight and Pretzels' is the barely relevant title of this Depression-era musical. Made by low-budget Universal Pictures (though not filmed on the Universal lot), it somehow feels as if it were made by one of the more prestigious studios. The dance numbers resemble what Busby Berkeley was doing at Warners. Brassy songstress Lillian Miles seems to be imitating Alice Faye at 20th Century-Fox. Roger Pryor, bereft of his usual moustache, emotes like the B-team Clark Gable but does a splendid job of pretending to play the piano. Less felicitous is the incredibly bad shot-matching by one Robert Snody (who?) all through this movie.
This is one of those "Let's put on a show" musicals, much of its score written by Yip Harburg and Jay Gorney, who had recently scored a hit on Broadway with "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?". The climactic song here, a weirdie Depression number cried "Dusty Shoes", seems to be trying to copy that previous song's success. Oddly, one dialogue scene seems to be a song cue for "It's Only a Paper Moon", a song that Harburg had written a few months earlier (for a Broadway show), but that hit standard never occurs here.
Top billing is given to Leo Carrillo as an excitable Greek who puts the em-PHA-sis on the wrong syl-LA-ble, but he's definitely playing a supporting role. Much better performances are given here by William Frawley as the sardonic stage manager ('Here come some early worms to give us the bird') and Bobby Watson as a 'nance' dance director. Louis Sorin and Alexander Campbell are good as the Hobart Brothers, villainous impresarios.
SLIGHT SPOILER. There's a weird piece of plot business dealing with a 25-cent piece that has two tails, rather than two heads. When a gambler flips this coin to settle a bet, I was genuinely surprised by what happened next. Some bits and bobs of this movie work very well indeed, but other parts are overblown. My rating: just 6 out of 10.
This is one of those "Let's put on a show" musicals, much of its score written by Yip Harburg and Jay Gorney, who had recently scored a hit on Broadway with "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?". The climactic song here, a weirdie Depression number cried "Dusty Shoes", seems to be trying to copy that previous song's success. Oddly, one dialogue scene seems to be a song cue for "It's Only a Paper Moon", a song that Harburg had written a few months earlier (for a Broadway show), but that hit standard never occurs here.
Top billing is given to Leo Carrillo as an excitable Greek who puts the em-PHA-sis on the wrong syl-LA-ble, but he's definitely playing a supporting role. Much better performances are given here by William Frawley as the sardonic stage manager ('Here come some early worms to give us the bird') and Bobby Watson as a 'nance' dance director. Louis Sorin and Alexander Campbell are good as the Hobart Brothers, villainous impresarios.
SLIGHT SPOILER. There's a weird piece of plot business dealing with a 25-cent piece that has two tails, rather than two heads. When a gambler flips this coin to settle a bet, I was genuinely surprised by what happened next. Some bits and bobs of this movie work very well indeed, but other parts are overblown. My rating: just 6 out of 10.