An A list Universal musical, this is no "Coney Island" or "Greenwich Village", lacking both technicolor and colorful characters. It's basically the same generic plot line of the ambitions of a producer to rise up out of their far from Times Square theater and land on the Great White Way. What starts off well bogs down into melodrama, basically bits and pieces of stage and screen musicals tossed together to create a rather maudlin film. Practically every Universal contract player shows up in this (minus Lugosi, Karloff and Chaney of the horror unit and Deanna Durbin of the musical unit) for a song and dance, and the lighthearted pacing of the Durbin musicals is greatly missed.
The story focuses on 14th Street theater owner Jack Oakie's desire to go uptown, and the issues involving his beautiful star, Susannah Foster. She is on her way to the top when a horrible accident curtails that. But pal Frank McHugh and his wife Rosemary DeCamp have a talented daughter who grows up to be Ann Blyth, and like "Show Boat's" Kim, she's an overnight sensation, leading to a lavish, overstuffed finale.
Along the way, there's Maria Montez as a temperamental international star, Louise Albritton as Lillian Russell (singing "Under the Bamboo Tree" very unlike Margaret O'Brien the very same year, and Andy Devine as a sentimental priest. I didn't find that this represented the turn of the century Bowery in the least. In fact, I found Universal's attempts to rival the 20th Century Fox lavish period musical to be a near misfire. They had better luck with the teen based musicals which must be why they threw in Donald O'Connor and Peggy Ryan for a specialty. The lavish Susannah Foster musical number, "There'll Always Be a Moon", is a snoozer, and the ripoff in the reprise of a tragic moment from the 1935 movie musical "Sweet Adeline" lacks the needed impact. If this succeeded in anything, it showed how lavish the musicals made at Republic studios were, because this is overstuffed with style and only a tiny whisp of substance.
The story focuses on 14th Street theater owner Jack Oakie's desire to go uptown, and the issues involving his beautiful star, Susannah Foster. She is on her way to the top when a horrible accident curtails that. But pal Frank McHugh and his wife Rosemary DeCamp have a talented daughter who grows up to be Ann Blyth, and like "Show Boat's" Kim, she's an overnight sensation, leading to a lavish, overstuffed finale.
Along the way, there's Maria Montez as a temperamental international star, Louise Albritton as Lillian Russell (singing "Under the Bamboo Tree" very unlike Margaret O'Brien the very same year, and Andy Devine as a sentimental priest. I didn't find that this represented the turn of the century Bowery in the least. In fact, I found Universal's attempts to rival the 20th Century Fox lavish period musical to be a near misfire. They had better luck with the teen based musicals which must be why they threw in Donald O'Connor and Peggy Ryan for a specialty. The lavish Susannah Foster musical number, "There'll Always Be a Moon", is a snoozer, and the ripoff in the reprise of a tragic moment from the 1935 movie musical "Sweet Adeline" lacks the needed impact. If this succeeded in anything, it showed how lavish the musicals made at Republic studios were, because this is overstuffed with style and only a tiny whisp of substance.