PUKEY REPEATS

PUKEY REPEATS (1946). Director: Federico Fellini.

Although the studio deemed the June Allyson comedy Pukey to be unreleasable, famed Italian director Federico Fellini caught a special screening of it during a trip to Hollywood and was -- bizarrely enough -- totally enchanted. He contacted Allyson and arranged to make another Pukey film which can be considered a sequel or a remake or both. In this the cookie-tossing singer Pukey (Allyson) decides to take up opera, with completely unamusing results. Although she can't even sing normally, she somehow manages to acquire a contract with La scala in Milan, where much of this was filmed. Keefe Braselle, who appeared in the first film, absolutely refused to be associated with the second, so he was replaced by Broderick Crawford, who makes a highly unlikely love interest for Allyson. You have to hear Allyson attempting to croak out "Nessum Dorma" from Puccini's Turandot to believe it! Fellini filled the film with his usual interesting and exotic faces, but the script -- based, believe it or not, on a play by Italian artist and WW 1 hero Gabrielle D'Annunzio -- is just abysmal.

Verdict: Dreadful! *.