Poor cute Dickie Moore must have taken a friendly ribbing for this jazzy war era musical comedy, one where he agrees to help the girls put the boys in their place. At one point, he tells one male classmate that he doesn't fight; He uses his hands for music only! Of course, being World War II, he obviously has a female love interest (perky Tina Thayer), but he's simply just one of the boys who is one of the girls. It all surrounds the efforts of the girls at this school of music to provide entertainment for the soldiers on leave, and at first, it's all classical music that the audience hears. One of the feistier female students declares, "I don't like the cooking here. Strictly from the long underwear department!"
The opening sequence is a nice little ballad sung by a Deanna Durbin sound-alike (Gerra Young in her only film role), but the musical stand-out is the jazzy title song at the opening of the teen canteen, and a novelty song called "Cockadodle Doo", sung by Virginia Wiedler/Peggy Ryan look-alike Beverly Boyd. In fact, even while this was made by poverty row studio PRC, it seems more like one of the many teen focused programmers made by Universal where the Dickie Moore role was usually played by Donald O'Connor. The middle of World War II saw a mostly female population, and for the high school aged male population, the anticipation of active duty must have been an Adrenalin booster. This left the needs of every day society in the hands of the women or older men left behind, and
"The soldiers are defending our country. What are you defending but the crease in your trousers?" one sarcastic female teen asks one of the jealous male teens of the attention that the visiting soldiers get. The guys decide to get their share of attention by giving the performance to end all performances, reminding their girlfriends that one day, they too might be soldiers or sailors on leave, and need equal encouragement for the war that was supposed to end all wars. A great musical montage of the boys in the band turns things around their way, giving a truly patriotic feeling to this minor but moving little entry in the "Let's put on a show!" series of many teen films that really rocked the 40's. The story is also stronger than a lot of these films which were mainly variety shows (short of the Mickey/Judy teamings, of course), involving an estate probate issue which may prevent the big show from going on. This is a reminder of the homestead of the war era where civilians fought along in ways today's generation can't even fathom.
The opening sequence is a nice little ballad sung by a Deanna Durbin sound-alike (Gerra Young in her only film role), but the musical stand-out is the jazzy title song at the opening of the teen canteen, and a novelty song called "Cockadodle Doo", sung by Virginia Wiedler/Peggy Ryan look-alike Beverly Boyd. In fact, even while this was made by poverty row studio PRC, it seems more like one of the many teen focused programmers made by Universal where the Dickie Moore role was usually played by Donald O'Connor. The middle of World War II saw a mostly female population, and for the high school aged male population, the anticipation of active duty must have been an Adrenalin booster. This left the needs of every day society in the hands of the women or older men left behind, and
"The soldiers are defending our country. What are you defending but the crease in your trousers?" one sarcastic female teen asks one of the jealous male teens of the attention that the visiting soldiers get. The guys decide to get their share of attention by giving the performance to end all performances, reminding their girlfriends that one day, they too might be soldiers or sailors on leave, and need equal encouragement for the war that was supposed to end all wars. A great musical montage of the boys in the band turns things around their way, giving a truly patriotic feeling to this minor but moving little entry in the "Let's put on a show!" series of many teen films that really rocked the 40's. The story is also stronger than a lot of these films which were mainly variety shows (short of the Mickey/Judy teamings, of course), involving an estate probate issue which may prevent the big show from going on. This is a reminder of the homestead of the war era where civilians fought along in ways today's generation can't even fathom.