Meet-cutes were staple fare in thirties and forties Hollywood and Billy Wilder was a master of the genre so it's not surprising to find that 1) Bing Crosby and Mary Martin meet-cute in this lightweight entry and 2) Billy Wilder is credited with the story - as opposed to screenplay. Several Crosby musicals have been packaged as double dvds and this is is twinned with Rhythm On The Range, which is light years inferior. Apart from solid throating from the two leads and a fine score which is mostly down to Johnny Burke and James V. Monaco (they did the first 'Road' picture, Singapore, the previous year) there's a bonus in the shape of Basil Rathbone in a rare non-menacing/cold, unemotional logic role which calls for both charm and a light touch, both of which he takes in his stride, and the caustic Oscar Levant and theirs is a partnership that was woefully unexploited. Rathbone is a celebrity-songwriter who has mislaid his talent and has been relying on a couple of ghost writers to keep his name before the public with Crosby providing the music and Martin the lyrics, each, of course, unknown to the other, thus the 'meet-cute' element.Fortunately director Victor Schertzinger - no mean songwriter himself, who supplied I Don't Want To Cry Anymore to the mix - wastes minimum time on the initial mix-up and allows the story to flow leavened nicely with songs. There's also a pleasant nod to the big Crosby-Astaire feature Holiday Inn, still two years away, in the Nobody's Inn run by the Crosby character's uncle. A very pleasant time passer.
Review of Rhythm on the River
