User Reviews

I have not seen this film since it was shown on television somewhere in the early 1960s. And the reason I recall it at all was not the singing of Alice Faye, nor the antics of Joan Davis (a sadly forgotten comedian). It was the appearance of Jimmy Durante alone, or with Fred Allen.

Durante's film career has not gotten studied as much as other great film clowns, but it lasted far longer than most - from the 1930s (when he was Buster Keaton's "partner" in a series of comedies) to the 1960s (when he was the criminal whose "kicking the bucket" sets off IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD). He did have lead roles in some of them, like THE GREAT RUPERT, but Jimmy usually was in support - though strong support (like in IT HAPPENED IN BROOKLYN).

Allen's best film work would be in IT'S IN THE BAG, and LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR - and later in WE'RE NOT MARRIED and O'HENRY'S FULL HOUSE. But he is amusing here - his "Gabby" is not a great agent, though he tries hard. To me, the scene that best showed Allen's humor in this film was a brief scene where he was eating a peach, and shaves it with a razor to remove the peach fuzz. There is also a moment I fondly recall of Allen and Durante speaking to each other with office jargon using intercoms, and at the end, Durante getting up, walking across the room, and talking directly to Allen who was there all the time!

One final thing about this film - the steamboat turned into a nightclub by the girls is named the "General Fremont" and it breaks lose at the conclusion of the film. The same ship and conclusion was used some five years later by Laurel & Hardy in the conclusion of the best of their last films, JITTERBUGS.

This was the second time "Sally, Irene and Mary" was adapted for the screen. The first version of 1925 boasted a strong cast with Constance Cummings, Joan Crawford and Sally O'Neil. The story of three New York manicurists offered a delightful entertainment in which three aspiring actresses have to deal with the realities of life in the Big Apple, and the insecurities of the world they were trying to get into.

The later 20th Century Fox version of 1938, directed by William Seiter, is perhaps better than its predecessor, both were based on an Eddie Dowling play. This remake had an amazing cast with the beautiful and charismatic Alice Faye playing Sally, and Tony Martin appearing as Tommy.

The great radio personality Mel Allen was cast as Gabby Green, an enterprising man with not much luck, but with big ideas of his own. Mr. Allen is delightful in the movie. Joan Davis has a great musical number with Gregory Ratoff, who plays Baron Zorka, the millionaire that had fallen for Sally, only to be rejected by her. Jimmy Durante graces the picture with his Jefferson Twitchel. Gypsy Rose Lee, who is credited as Louise Hovick, has some fun with her Joyce Taylor, the woman that wants Tommy. Mary Weaver shows up as Mary.

The film is fun to watch because of the cast. Some of the musical numbers, like the one where the three heroines of the story play with the Brian Sisters, are pleasant to watch. The songs, although not memorable, are sweet, interpreted by Ms. Faye and Mr. Martin.

Sally, Irene and Mary were three separate hit Broadway musicals, so somebody got the fancy idea to make a musical with all three names together in an unrelated show. It's three Cinderella stories for the price of one, basically "Gold Diggers with Glass Slippers", a sweet story of three chorus girls looking to make it big on the great white way. Here, they aren't actually on Broadway, indeed, they are way off Broadway, in the middle of the Hudson, on an old tug they turn into a nightclub. During the middle of the "big show", it all threatens to sink when the anchor holding them ashore all of a sudden snaps and sends them roaring into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The host claims it was all for publicity and urges everybody to go back to their tables where perhaps they'll find the card of some ambulance chasing attorney who wants to be hired by the scared patrons to sue the pants off of the owners for threatening to hurt them. But the romantic storyline of two of the characters must be resolved, and this leads to a silly announcement about what the audience had seen on stage right before the boat threatened to join the Luscitania, Titanic, Morotania and other water vessels down in the depths near Davey Jones' locker.

The three girls are sweet little Miss Alice Faye, feisty comic Joan Davis and lucky Marjorie Weaver (the inheritor of the beaten up old show boat), first seen as struggling chorus girls who work as manacurists, and later involved in a Broadway revue starring Tony Martin. When one of the show's investors (Louise Hovick, aka Gypsy Rose Lee) becomes jealous of the obvious attraction between Faye and Martin (ironically married at the time), she angrily insists that Alice be fired. But the temperamental Ms. Hovick better be careful about what she wishes for, because therefore goes the lover you want, Tony Martin basically following Faye out of the theater and onto the show boat where she can't be fired by anybody, especially the red hot mama of the striptease who shows up for the big night on one last ditch effort to win Martin back.

With Alice and Tony providing songs, Joan Davis providing comedy (getting that mad romantic Russian Gregory Ratoff to back off of his continued harassment of Faye) and Hovick providing the bitchy other woman, there's not much left for Marjorie Reynolds to do. Fred Allen provides his usual dead-pan observations, and Jimmy Durante is also present for a few musical moments and his usual slapstick. A very funny Barnett Parker provides effeminate comedy relief with additional excellent character actor support by Eddie Collins and Mary Treen. While the staging of the musical numbers is lavish, the songs aren't really all that memorable, although one little novelty number ("Who stole the jam?") is amusing.

Despite the title, Mary (played by Marjorie Weaver) hardly gets a look-in as both the scriptwriters and the director focus on Sally Day (the lovely and enchanting Alice Faye) and to a lesser extent, Irene Keene (the lively comedienne, Joan Davis). In fact, the cast is so well lined with expert comedy sketches (played by the likes of Fred Allen, Gregory Ratoff, Barnett Parker, Jimmy Durante, Eddie Collins, Gypsy Rose Lee), plus the romantic interludes with Tony Martin, that Miss Weaver is actually no more than a vague figure in the background. The songs, however, are not particularly memorable and their staging is no great shakes, but Jimmy Durante renders one of them in his own inimitable style, while Alice Faye's appealing presence and tuneful voice more than make up for any shortcomings in the tunes themselves. But frankly, it's actually in the comedy scenes that the movie excels: Gregory Ratoff fulminating delightfully as he shatters every mirror in an enormous Hollywood- style barber shop; radio comedian, Fred Allen, who, surprisingly and delightfully, is as funny visually as he is verbally (I love the sequence in which he glibly explains to the shaken passengers that there will be no extra charge for their wild ride). And it's really no wonder that the comedy scenes take top honors in this movie as the direction was in the hands of William A. Seiter, a comedy specialist – in fact, many would say Hollywood's number one comedy specialist. The "many" would include Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey, The Marx Brothers, The Ritz Brothers, Jimmy Durante, Shirley Temple and W.C. Fields – not to mention Gypsy Rose Lee's socialite impresario in this movie, rubber-faced Eddie Collins as the captain, and Andrew Tombes as the delightfully cowardly minister. As mentioned above, the only aspect of this solidly entertaining movie that is somewhat disappointing is the rather threadbare staging of the musical numbers (although the costumes are first class). In all other respects, production values are first rate. Available on an excellent 20th Century Fox DVD.