SAY ONE FOR ME

Debbie Reynolds and Robert Wagner

SAY ONE FOR ME (1959). Produced and directed by Frank Tashlin. 

Father Conroy (Bing Crosby) has a parish in the middle of the theater district and holds services at two in the morning. When one parishioner, Harry (Les Tremayne), falls ill and can't work, his daughter, Holly (Debbie Reynolds), takes up the slack. Harry and Father Conroy think she's working as a secretary, but Holly is actually appearing in a nightclub with her smooth and handsome partner and boss, Tony Vincent (Robert Wagner). Now the trick is to keep that wolf Tony at bay while both of them jockey for stardom. When Father Conroy gets a chance to put together a TV special, Tony thinks he's In Like Flynn -- but is he?

Ray Walston with Der Bingle

Say One for Me is artificial from the first frame to the last, and comes off more like something out of the 1930s than the 1950s. Bing doesn't strain too much to put over his familiar portrayal of Father Conroy, and Reynolds and Wagner are perfectly professional. Wagner sings and dances in this, but he's no threat to Fred Astaire. The supporting cast is perhaps of more interest: In addition to Tremayne, we've got Connie Gilchrist as the priest's cook and housekeeper; Joe Besser -- "Stinky" on The Abbott and Costello Show -- as Tony's manager; and especially Ray Walston in a terrific turn as an alcoholic associate of Tony's. Father Conroy cures the man of his addiction overnight! 

Judy Harriet as June January

There are a few songs by Cahn and Van Heusen, most of which are forgettable, with the exception of Bing's "I Couldn't Care Less" and "Christmas All Year Through." Judy Harriet plays a girl who is rejected for the nightclub by Tony and tells him in a year she'll be a star, which happens at the end of the movie as she warbles her hit record, "The Night Rock n Roll Died" -- also forgettable. The best music in the movie is actually the theme music by Lionel Newman. If the movie weren't treacly enough, it also throws in a baby and an unwed mother. Sebastian Cabot shows  up briefly as a fat Monsignor, and Herb Alpert is the sexy trumpet player in the background of one of the numbers.

Verdict: You can stand this for about an hour but unfortunately it's two hours long! **.   

SUSAN SLEPT HERE

Dick Powell

SUSAN SLEPT HERE (1954). Director: Frank Tashlin.

Screenwriter and bachelor Mark Christopher (Dick Powell of Pitfall) finds himself with an unusual Christmas "present." Two cops of his acquaintance want him to babysit a 17-year-old girl, Susan (Debbie Reynolds), over the holiday so they won't have to actually book her for some minor offense on Christmas Day. Mark reluctantly agrees but this causes problems for his sort of fiancee Isabella (Anne Francis), and upsets his household, which consists of secretary Maude (Glenda Farrell) and his old Navy buddy, Virgil (Alvy Moore). But is the middle-aged author more drawn to lovely, very young Susan than he would care to admit?

Farrell, Moore and Reynolds

One thing this comedy has going for it is some excellent performances. Debbie Reynolds, who was actually twenty-two at the time, is simply outstanding. Powell --fifty playing thirty-five but not getting away with it -- is no slouch, either. Farrell uses all she learned about acting since the thirties to make a distinct impression, and Moore manages to emerge an almost poignant figure, although his chief function is to get more laughs. Anne Francis also scores in the thankless role of the fiancee who is treated rather badly but whom Mark apparently never took seriously to begin with. Maidie Norman [What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?] and Les Tremayne [The Monolith Monsters] are also good as, respectively, Mark's maid and lawyer.

The characters at least seem a little more dimensional than in most comedies of this type, but that may be due to the performances. The picture goes on about twenty minutes too long, and there is a very tedious dream sequence in which Susan imagines Annabella literally snaring Mark in her web. (You would think that Powell and Reynolds would actually dance together, but they never really do.) Red Skelton has a funny cameo. This was Dick Powell's last theatrical film; he appeared strictly on television thereafter.

Verdict: Strangely appealing May-December romantic comedy that shouldn't work but does. ***. 

THE GLASS BOTTOM BOAT

Doris Day

THE GLASS BOTTOM BOAT (1966). Director: Frank Tashlin.

Widow Jennifer Nelson (Doris Day) works as a tour guide at a space research center, where she runs into scientist Bruce Templeton (Rod Taylor) only days after he hooks her mermaid suit with a fishing rod. Attracted to Jennifer, Bruce gives her an assignment to get close to her, and pretends he's working on something called Project: Venus. In truth, he has developed a device called Gizmo. Some of Bruce's associates, such as his partner, Zach (Dick Martin) and General Bleecker (Edward Andrews), are convinced Jennifer is a Russian spy who's after the secret plans for Gizmo. This leads into all sorts of complications, some of which are quite funny, and others not so much. Instead of doing The Graduate, which might have led into more mature and serious roles for Day, she did stuff like The Glass Bottom Boat, which made use of her talents as a comic actress (although not on a Lucille Ball level) but little else. Still, she's good in the picture, as is her co-star Rod Taylor, who handles the silliness with aplomb after already appearing with Day in Do Not Disturb. The movie tries to tie into the spy trends of the period with gadgets and the like, and Robert Vaughn of The Man from U.N.C.L.E even shows up for literally a second. Martin, Andrews, and Dom DeLuise [Fail-Safe] adeptly add some fun to the proceedings, although Paul Lynde [Bye Bye Birdie] is given the single funniest moment, which is the priceless expression on his face when he observes Martin and Andrews inadvertently in bed with one another. He also does a comical drag routine, especially when he's interacting with Day in a ladies room. Alice Pearce [The Belle of New York] and George Tobias play Day's neighbors, and essentially essay the same roles as the ones they play on TV's Bewitched, which debuted two years earlier. Arthur Godfrey is cast as Day's father, who owns the titular boat and has his daughter playing mermaid now and then to justify the title; he adds nothing to the picture. The movie is about half an hour too long, and hasn't enough of director Tashlin's trademark cartoon-like humor, although there are some amusing scenes such as a comical encounter between Day, DeLuise, a cake, and a trash can. It's amazing that nobody noticed that the song sung over the opening credits, "The Deep Blue Sea," is basically a knock-off of "Mockingbird." This was the last of Day's films to make money, after which she fled to television.

Verdict: Punctuated with enough laughs to keep you watching, but never a real riot. **1/2.

THE FULLER BRUSH GIRL

Eddie Albert and Lucille Ball

THE FULLER BRUSH GIRL (1950). Director: Lloyd Bacon. Written by Frank Tashlin.

Sally Elliott (Lucille Ball) is engaged to co-worker Humphrey Briggs (Eddie Albert), and the two have their eye on a home they can't afford. After a spectacular accident at work involving an exploding switchboard, Sally is fired and tries her hand at selling cosmetics as a Fuller Brush girl (she hasn't actually got the job yet, but is kind of "auditioning"). She and Humphrey wind up in the midst of a murder mystery, on the run both from police and from the real killer, winding up on a ship at sea with a bomb aboard! Red Skelton's The Fuller Brush Man was a success, so it was only natural for there to be a Fuller Brush Girl, and Lucy was an inspired choice as star, as she's wonderful in this. Franklin Tashlin's funny script (he also co-wrote Fuller Brush Man), has lots of thrills and laughs, and is full of his trademark inventive "cartoon-style" comedy, such as a great scene when Lucy, wearing several round life preservers, goes rapidly rolling around the deck of the ship and almost goes kerplunk into the ocean. Albert [On Your Toes] provides fine support for Lucy, and there are good performances from Jerome Cowan [Have Rocket, Will Travel] as her boss; Lee Patrick as his wife; Gail Robbins as dancer Ruby Rawlings; Arthur Space as Inspector Rogers; and Jeff Donnell [Night Editor] as Sally's friend, Jane. Red Skelton has a cameo playing himself and a potential customer -- he sells some items to Lucy instead of the other way around! There's a lot of clever stuff in this and the two parrots on the ship (voiced by Mel Blanc) are a scream.

Verdict: Cute picture with lots of laughs and a resplendent Lucy! ***.

THE FULLER BRUSH MAN

Red Skelton succumbs to the charms of Adele Jergens

THE FULLER BRUSH MAN (1948). Director: S. Sylvan Simon.

Red Jones (Red Skelton), who has trouble holding on to a job, to put it mildly, is told by his girlfriend Ann (Janet Blair) that if he doesn't make good at something they're through. He decides to try for a job at the Fuller Brush company where Ann works, but a romantic rival, Mr. Wallick (Don McGuire), who's a top salesman, makes it his business to screw up Red's chances at every turn. Things take a turn for the worse when Red becomes the suspect in the mysterious murder of Commissioner Trist (Nicholas Joy), who fired him from his last assignment. Skelton is in top form in one of his funniest movies, with an inventive script by Frank Tashlin [and Devery Freeman] that is full of so many great sight-gags that the movie is at times a live-action cartoon [typical of Tashlin's work]. A bit in a garden involving bug spray, pruning shears, and legs in weird positions is nearly classic, as is a hilarious sequence wherein Red tries to sell a shower brush to the man-hungry starlet Miss Sharmley (Adele Jergens), who's "brushed off more men than the porter at the Waldorf." In this brief bit sexy Jergens almost walks off with the movie, but there are also very good performances from the rest of the cast, which includes Hillary Brooke as Trist's wife, Sara Franzen as his protege, and Arthur Space as a police lieutenant. Don McGuire scores as the wolfish cad Wallick and Blair is attractive and capable as Skelton's girl.The ending in a factory is also full of clever physical action, all well-handled by director Simon and a variety of stunt people. Verna Felton and Jimmy Hunt [Invaders from Mars] have a funny scene wherein Red tries to sell the former one of his brushes and her not-so-adorable grandson interferes.

Verdict: One of Skelton's best! ***.

THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT

THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT (1956). Director: Frank Tashlin.

"Fats" Murdock (Edmond O'Brien) hires washed-up press agent Tom Miller (Tom Ewell) to turn his sort of girlfriend Jerri Jordan (Jayne Mansfield of the massive mammaries) into a famous singer -- unfortunately the girl can't sing. This basically borrows the plot of Born Yesterday and adds a rock music background [there are song numbers performed by guest artists]. In a rather weird subplot development, Miller is obsessed with the real-life singer Julie London, who broke his heart [and who is heard singing "Cry Me a River."] Henry Jones and Barry Gordon have small roles. Mansfield exhibits an appealing personality if no great acting ability, but she isn't terrible. O'Brien and Ewell seem to be having fun, and the former even sings! Amusing final twist.

Verdict: Good-natured, if minor-league comedy. **1/2.

SON OF PALEFACE

SON OF PALEFACE (1952). Director: Frank Tashlin.

One of Bob Hope's best comedy vehicles, the sequel to his equally successful The Paleface, has “Paleface” Potter traveling from Harvard (where he took fourteen years to graduate) to the Wild West in his horseless carriage to claim his late father's fortune. Lying in wait for him are all of his father's creditors, angry Indians, and Jane Russell, a saloon owner who doubles as a highway robber known as “The Torch.” Roy Rogers amiably plays a Federal agent who just happens to act and sing like Roy Rogers. His horse Trigger, truly “the smartest horse in the West,” turns in one of the best performances as a wonder horse who can open doors, climb stairs, outfox Hope, and even steal the covers from him in a classic scene when the two wind up sharing a bed! Busty Russell is as hard and “butch” as ever in her own bizarrely feminine way and Hope is in top form throughout (he seems to go in and out of character at times but in a farce like this it hardly matters). Clever, inventive, and funny, Son of Paleface is full of director Tashlin's trademark cartoon-like humor. At the time of the film's release there were protests from Native Americans at the scenes of the rampaging Indians being shot down like tenpins even though the whole tone throughout is outlandish and not to be taken seriously. Still, you can see how it would bother them that the Indians are barely depicted as being human. NOTE: For a lengthy analysis of this film and of the career and life of Bob Hope, check out Lawrence Quirk's biography Bob Hope: The Road Well Traveled.

Verdict: Funny stuff. ***.