Busby Berkeley (1895–1976)

A clothing company decides to prostitute the women of its steno pool out to their out-of-town buyers to keep the buyers happy & boost flagging sales.

Flo Denny, who is engaged to Tommy—one of the firm’s oily salesmen, finds herself innocently hurled into this scheme in order to win a big fat commission for her fiancé. She soon discovers that her fiancé is cheating on her with the company’s resident bimbo & dumps him, only to have him drunkenly stalk her & call her every insulting show more name under the sun.

At the same time, Danny—the out-of-town buyer Flo got saddled spending the evening with—love bombs her, paws all over her, convinces her to throw herself at a business associate so he can earn a big fat commission, & attempts to rape her not once, but twice while also calling her every insulting name under the sun. Flo ends up engaged to this monstrosity because, she concludes, all men are the same & Danny isn’t quite as bad as Tommy (and I guess she figures she has to be engaged to somebody ?). The End.

This movie is so infested with ‘ICK’ it will positively make your skin crawl (if you are a woman, anyway). As far as the men are concerned, the women are playthings that exist solely to pleasure them, to earn them money, and to cheerfully take any abuse they choose to throw their way. Sad to say, it accurately reflects the time period in which it was made—not to mention the time period in which we are living today. I actually work in an office with carbon copies of Tommy & Danny (& my boss positively dotes on them)—the world has made no progress, ladies, even though we try hard to pretend otherwise! There is something especially sordid about having that level of sleaziness thrown back in your face on a movie screen.

This movie could not end fast enough to suit me, which is unfortunate because it had a noteworthy cast including: Loretta Young, Regis Toomey, Lyle Talbot, and even a couple of cameos by great character actors George Chandler & Harold Waldridge.

Avoid this one if you don’t want a layer of slime permanently adhering to your memory. show less

Garfield has charisma to burn playing a boxer framed for a murder who heads West and ends up at a ranch where the Dead End Kids have been sent to un-degenerate themselves. Ann Sheridan makes a big impression in a brief role at the beginning of the film. And Claude Rains is a disgraced detective with a weird accent. Not to mention peril in a big irrigation tank. Enjoyable! Despite the director, there is no dancing, however.

Some chorus girls mess with their friend's fiancee's rich brother.

Good. The comedy parts are fun and very Pre-Code. The musical numbers are boring, but I've seen worse.

A film starring Ethel Waters and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson (MGM, 1943).

A dead gambler is given six more months to live to try to get into Heaven.

C+ (Okay).

There's some good music, and some great dancing, but surprisingly little of either. I understand Lena Horne's solo number and Louis Armstrong's only number were both cut from the movie. Meanwhile, the dialog is written in exactly the style you'd expect from a 1943 Hollywood movie with an all-black cast.

(Feb. 2023)