This Republic programmer mainly set in a British aircraft factory has a largely British cast that pitch in gamely and a plot that anticipates the British 'Millions Like Us', released a few months later. The stress on doing your bit to "manufacture those grey hairs for that nasty man in Germany", as well as a couple of sequences sternly stressing the need to observe health and safety regulations to the letter makes it feel like a public information film, sweetened with frequent songs, including a duet between J.Pat O'Malley and Elsa Lanchester which marks one of Elsa's final film appearances in a youthful role before she became typecast as middle-aged (and then elderly) eccentrics.
3 Reviews
Just one of a hundred films each year on the same subject.
mark.waltz8 January 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Republic Pictures never got off the war propaganda machine until the war was long over, and even then, it moved onto the cold war. Brenda Joyce is an American singer over in Great Britain who decides to get involved in munitions factory work, moving in with Elsa Lancaster (providing the bulk of the comedy) and finding romance with factory boss Richard Fraser who is strict with her at work and really makes her take the job seriously. This film is definitely filled with propaganda, and sometimes it does go over the top, but in watching hundreds of these war movies over the years, you can't help but expect that.
The songs are snappy yet ordinary, with the title song, "Love is a Corny Thing" and "Who are the British?" the standouts with some terrific dancing making the film swing, cut a rug and get into the groove of the popular styles of the time. Broadway burlesque queen Gertrude Nielsen ("Follow the Boys") performs the zesty "Who are the British?" which becomes a big group number and a great list song of various celebrities and political figures of the time.
It's dated in many ways, typical of many films, and filled with cliches, but the entertainment value is worth putting up with those elements. There's not much plot outside the conflict of Fraser and agent Arthur Margetson competing for Joyce's affections, but there's plenty of amusing dialog that deals with cultural conflicts between Joyce and the tough talking Queenie Leonard who obviously hates Joyce from the start. My thumbs end up being sideways because I didn't feel that this really wasted my time but it wasn't anything that I hadn't seen before.
The songs are snappy yet ordinary, with the title song, "Love is a Corny Thing" and "Who are the British?" the standouts with some terrific dancing making the film swing, cut a rug and get into the groove of the popular styles of the time. Broadway burlesque queen Gertrude Nielsen ("Follow the Boys") performs the zesty "Who are the British?" which becomes a big group number and a great list song of various celebrities and political figures of the time.
It's dated in many ways, typical of many films, and filled with cliches, but the entertainment value is worth putting up with those elements. There's not much plot outside the conflict of Fraser and agent Arthur Margetson competing for Joyce's affections, but there's plenty of amusing dialog that deals with cultural conflicts between Joyce and the tough talking Queenie Leonard who obviously hates Joyce from the start. My thumbs end up being sideways because I didn't feel that this really wasted my time but it wasn't anything that I hadn't seen before.
Thumbs Down
boblipton16 March 2019
Brenda Joyce thinks she has a part in a new West End show, and stardom. The producer decides to put on a revue featuring talent from war industries instead. Miss Joyce takes a job in an airplane factory to get in on that.
It's a surprisingly inept movie directed by the usually reliable Joseph Santley. I lay most of the blame on a script in which people rarely speak, but give speeches; when they do speak, it sounds like they've learned English dialogue by reading penny dreadfuls. Douglas Heath, playing the RAF Officer at the plant -- he's the love interest, as anyone can tell in the first minute of the movie, when he insults Miss Joyce by accidentally throwing pennies at her when she's singing a poorly received song at a night club -- may be good looking, but his line readings, even by the standards of the movie, are awful. Even the songs, written by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn, are poor. Styne's music is, as usual fine, but the lyrics to "Who Are The British?", instead of talking about the ordinary people, rattles off a bunch of famous people.
With all those errors in mind, the fact that there's a picture on the wall of Churchill where the King should be is just another item in a checklist that includes poor lip-syncing, bad accents, thinking that dressing rural English people like hillbillies, and wasting Elsa Lanchester are good ideas.
Of course, this is a Republic Picture, and was never thought likely to play to an audience that would notice these things. This was a wartime flag-waver, intended to show the company's rural and small-town audiences that the British were not waiting around for the United States to save them; they were working hard. However the execution is so slovenly as to be offensive.
It's a surprisingly inept movie directed by the usually reliable Joseph Santley. I lay most of the blame on a script in which people rarely speak, but give speeches; when they do speak, it sounds like they've learned English dialogue by reading penny dreadfuls. Douglas Heath, playing the RAF Officer at the plant -- he's the love interest, as anyone can tell in the first minute of the movie, when he insults Miss Joyce by accidentally throwing pennies at her when she's singing a poorly received song at a night club -- may be good looking, but his line readings, even by the standards of the movie, are awful. Even the songs, written by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn, are poor. Styne's music is, as usual fine, but the lyrics to "Who Are The British?", instead of talking about the ordinary people, rattles off a bunch of famous people.
With all those errors in mind, the fact that there's a picture on the wall of Churchill where the King should be is just another item in a checklist that includes poor lip-syncing, bad accents, thinking that dressing rural English people like hillbillies, and wasting Elsa Lanchester are good ideas.
Of course, this is a Republic Picture, and was never thought likely to play to an audience that would notice these things. This was a wartime flag-waver, intended to show the company's rural and small-town audiences that the British were not waiting around for the United States to save them; they were working hard. However the execution is so slovenly as to be offensive.
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