Lucky Me

Showbiz superstition, a troupe in Miami goes under, bingo. Dishwashing and hotel work.

Young composer, looking for an independent break, meets rich girl. Her daddy’s money.

The show writes itself, but not the way Bosley Crowther had in mind, even Variety.

Fain & Webster send the songs in COD, nothing carries the show.

Foy, Walker, Silvers, Day. Cummings is the songwriter, Hyer the minx, Goodwin the Texas millionaire.

Babes in Toyland

Two halves govern the work.

Barnaby’s evil portrait is exactly like a crook readily familiar, a manipulator and investment scourge dressed up as a melodrama villain, or Dracula in a moustache. His song is “Castles in Spain”.

The Toymaker faces three main problems, Deconstruction, Computerization and Replication (Miniaturization).

Gonzorgo and Roderigo are generally modeled on Arbuckle & Keaton.

Marriage on the Rocks

“You don’t approve of me, do you?”

“Well, we just met.”

The Mexican lawyer’s office returns in Life Stinks (dir. Mel Brooks), arranged in no time on the way to La Casa Alegria, which if you do not know it reader means Happiness House.

Deborah Kerr returns to The Night of the Iguana (dir. John Huston) for this second honeymoon (Cesar Romero as Pancho Villa the proprietor).

“My cacciatore won First Prize at the Pomona Fair!”

Divorce papers, “fully notarized.” A witty epigram, “intentions are the basis of all morality.”

A job of work in Detroit, remarriage in Mexico. I Love Lucy, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.... “Married!? To him??”

Dr. Santos, whom one addresses as ¡Licenciado!, done take de case.

Puerta Villa, where one leaves by wedding ambulance.

“He’s a genius.” Jack Clayton’s The Pumpkin Eater is a side reflection of the theme and more.

The Catholic News Service Media Review Office, “clunky... bizarre... contrived... sluggishly dragged out... little of it is amusing.”

TV Guide, “faintly amusing”.

Halliwell’s Film Guide, “a dismal comedy,” citing The New Yorker, “long, coarse, and nearly always unfunny”.

Assault on a Queen

The real allegory of World War II is all the rage beneath the characterizations and the absurd plot. Raise a U-boat, rob the Queen Mary? For love of a beautiful Italian!

Rod Serling is abetted by Donohue in the many tricks he plays on the audience. Sinatra and John have drifted in from Howard Hawks, a tender speech on rescue from dereliction has its proper context in irony.

And so on, the endless jokes that paddle off to South America, finally, though critics must have crept out before the punchline, not one amongst them seems to have an inkling. Variety praises Kjellin, mentions Sinatra and Lisi as having little to do, and Crowther is worse.

Cf. A Submarine Pirate (Mack Sennett).