Pennies From Heaven (1936)

 

PENNIES FROM HEAVEN  (1936)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Norman Z. McLeod

    Bing Crosby, Edith Fellows, Madge Evans,

    Louis Armstrong, Donald Meek, George Chandler

A wandering minstrel from Mukilteo, Washington, finds his carefree life being disrupted by a young girl, her grandfather and the caseworker who could have the girl sent to an orphanage. Louis Armstrong gets a song and Bing gets several, in what's either not much of a movie, or just enough, depending on your point of view. 

Yesterday (2019)

YESTERDAY  (2019)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Danny Boyle

    Himesh Patel, Lily James, Kate McKinnon,

    Joel Fry, Ed Sheeran, Robert Carlyle

A tuneful musical fantasy about a struggling singer/songwriter named Jack Malik (Himesh Partel) who gets knocked cold in a traffic accident at the moment the power goes out all over the world. He comes to in a world where nobody's heard of cigarettes, Coca-Cola, Harry Potter, or (most significantly) the Beatles. Seizing an opportunity, he cribs the Beatles' music and lyrics and soon finds himself being hailed as the greatest rock-&-roll artist of all time. There are complications. Another reminder of how amazing and timeless the Beatles' songs are, and a good choice to go on a double bill with Julie Taymor's "Across the Universe". Robert Carlyle has an uncredited cameo, delivering some sage advice that helps Jack navigate a tricky situation toward the end of the film. You won't recognize Carlyle, but you'll know who he's playing immediately. 

Variety Girl (1947)

 

VARIETY GIRL  (1947)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: George Marshall

    Mary Hatcher, Olga San Juan, DeForest Kelley, 

    Frank Ferguson, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, 

    Gary Cooper, Alan Ladd, Ray Milland, Diana Lynn,

    Barbara Stanwyck, William Holden, Veronica Lake,

    Dorothy Lamour, Sterling Hayden, Gail Russell,

    Burt Lancaster, William Bendix, Paulette Goddard,

    Barry Fitzgerald, Lizabeth Scott, Robert Preston,

    Pearl Bailey, Mona Freeman, William Demarest,

    Frank Faylen, Cecil Kellaway, Spike Jones

A sort of Hollywood home movie in which a girl turns up in the land of dreams hoping for an audition and lots of stars wander in and out, some of them on screen no more than a few seconds. Pearl Bailey's the highlight. Alan Ladd sings a duet with Dorothy Lamour, and he's not bad. Paulette Goddard takes a bubble bath. Hope and Crosby trade a few good-natured barbs and do a little soft-shoe dance routine. In a demonstration of erratic marksmanship, Burt Lancaster aims a gun at the cigarette in Lizabeth Scott's mouth and shoots her instead. William Bendix shoves a grapefruit in Olga San Juan's face. It's silly and inconsequential, but when the stakes are this low, it doesn't really matter very much.

Ziegfeld Girl (1941)

 

ZIEGFELD GIRL  (1941)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Robert Z. Leonard

    James Stewart, Judy Garland, Hedy Lamarr,

    Lana Turner, Tony Martin, Jackie Cooper, 

    Edward Everett Horton, Charles Winninger,

    Ian Hunter, Philip Dorn, Paul Kelly, Eve Arden,

    Dan Dailey, Felix Bressart, Fay Holden, Al Sheen

Three young women break into the Ziegfeld Follies. Romance and melodrama follow. Busby Berkeley staged the production numbers, but the pre-Code stuff he did back in the early '30s was more fun. Judy singing "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows" is a highlight. The costumes are over-the-top. 

All Is Full of Love (1999)

 

ALL IS FULL OF LOVE  (1999)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Chris Cunningham 

    Björk

Love among the androids, with music by Björk.

Victor/Victoria (1982)

 

VICTOR/VICTORIA  (1982)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Blake Edwards

    Julie Andrews, James Garner, Robert Preston,

    Leslie Ann Warren, Alex Karras, John Rhys-Davies

A musical gender-blender set in 1934, with Julie Andrews as a starving singer who becomes the toast of Paris by pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman. James Garner plays a Chicago gangster who falls for him/her while trying to make sense of the ambiguity. Robert Preston plays a gay nightclub performer and Julie's partner/mentor/pal. Andrews makes a cute girl-boy, and the gay humor holds up better than you might expect. One of Blake Edwards' best movies.

Free (2022)

 

FREE  (2022)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Autumn de Wilde 

    Florence Welch, Bill Nighy

A music video for the Florence & the Machine song "Free", shot on location in Kyiv and dedicated to the people of Ukraine. Florence (as "Herself") delivers the tune and dances with spastic abandon, while Bill Nighy (as "Her Anxiety") makes a phone call.

How To Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965)

HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI  (1965)  ¢ ¢

    D: William Asher

    Annette Funicello, Dwayne Hickman, Mickey Rooney,

    Buster Keaton, Brian Donlevy, Harvey Lembeck,

    Beverly Adams, Jody McRae, Len Lesser,

    Ilene Tsu, Marianne Gaba, Frankie Avalon

Frankie's off in the South Pacific with the Naval Reserve, but the rest of the gang is still hanging out at the beach. The plot? It don't matter. Buster Keaton, Mickey Rooney and Brian Donlevy are in it, and there's some back projection that looks terrible (but who cares?), and Dobie Gillis fills in for Frankie, because Annette has to not hook up with somebody (and she's still the only girl in Malibu not wearing a bikini). An undemanding time filler, from a more innocent time maybe, innocuous, even by "Beach Party" standards. The Kingsmen show up long enough to play a tune, but it's not "Louie Louie".

Going Hollywood (1933)

 

GOING HOLLYWOOD  (1933)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Raoul Walsh

    Marion Davies, Bing Crosby, Fifi D'Orsay,

    Stuart Erwin, Ned Sparks, Patsy Kelly

William Randolph Hearst's girlfriend plays a French teacher who quits her job and follows a radio crooner to Hollywood where he's scheduled to make a movie. Bing sings "Temptation", the title tune and a few other things, Marion gets a musical number or two, and Patsy Kelly makes the most of her first feature film role as Marion's Hollywood pal. Surprise highlight: a group called the Radio Rogues, whose vocal impressions include Kate Smith and Crosby rivals Russ Columbo and Rudy Vallee.

The Hollywood Review on 1929 (1929)

 

THE HOLLYWOOD REVIEW OF 1929  (1929)   ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Charles Reisner

    Jack Benny, John Gilbert, Norma Shearer,

    Joan Crawford, Bessie Love, Marion Davies,

    Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Buster Keaton,

    Marie Dressler, Polly Moran, Ukelele Ike

MGM's entry in the early sound musical sweepstakes looks pretty stiff, with a stationary camera planted in front of a stage where the studio's stars perform a series of variety acts. Jack Benny's the host. Highlights include a comedy routine with Laurel and Hardy playing magicians, and a song-and-dance number featuring a chorus of tall royal guards and a tiny but lively Marion Davies.

Jimi Plays Monterey (1986)

 

JIMI PLAYS MONTEREY  (1986)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: D.A. Pennebaker, Chris Hegedus

Concert footage of Jimi Hendrix at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. John Phillips does the sparse narration, and Janis Joplin, Grace Slick and the Mamas & the Papas appear just long enough to be recognized. 

Let's Rock! (1958)

LET'S ROCK!  (1958)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Harry Foster

    Julius La Rosa, Phyllis Newman, Conrad Janis,

    Joy Harmon, Harold Gary, Fred Kareman

Does anybody remember Julius La Rosa? For those who don't, Julius La Rosa was a moderately successful 1950s crooner and a protege of Arthur Godfrey, who had a television show on which La Rosa frequently appeared. In this 1950s movie, La Rosa plays a crooner who hits a career crisis when he finds he's being edged off the charts by this new thing called rock-&-roll. La Rosa's not much of an actor, affable and a little bland, but he has a couple of nice scenes with Phyllis Newman that look partly improvised, shot on location in New York. He sings three ballads in his smooth crooner's voice, before caving to Phyllis and trying a rock number. Others in the musical lineup include Della Reese, Paul Anka and the late Wink Martindale. Apparently, this film marks the only screen appearance of both The Royal Teens ("Short Shorts") and Danny and the Juniors ("At the Hop"). It's worth watching just for that. 

Wink Martindale

(1933-2025)

Kiki (1931)

KIKI  (1931)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Sam Taylor

    Mary Pickford, Reginald Denny, Margaret Livingston,

    Joseph Cawthorn, Phil Tead, Fred Walton, Edwin Maxwell

Pre-Code Pickford, with Mary as a French chorus girl in love with a producer played by Reginald Denny. Pickford was in her mid-30s by the time sound came in, too old for the little-girl characters that had made her the screen's first female superstar. She made a few talkies (this was her next-to-last), but her transition to more adult roles didn't click with audiences and she retired in 1933. Not surprisingly, the best stuff in "Kiki" is visual, most  notably a musical number choreographed by Busby Berkeley, with the star in tails and a top hat gradually losing her pants. Pickford could do that sort of thing as well as anybody, including Chaplin, but movies were evolving and moving on, and they were about to move on without Mary Pickford. 

The Florodora Girl (1930)

 
THE FLORODORA GIRL  (1930)  ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Harry Beaumont

    Marion Davies, Lawrence Gray, Walter Catlett,

    Ilka Chase, George Chandler, Anita Louise

William Randolph Hearst's girlfriend plays a chorus girl looking for love. The movie's not much, but Marion's cute.

Romance On the High Seas (1948)

 

ROMANCE ON THE HIGH SEAS  (1948)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Michael Curtiz

    Jack Carson, Doris Day, Janis Paige, Don Defore,

    Oscar Levant, S.Z. Sakall, Leslie Brooks,

    Franklin Pangborn, Johnny Berkes, Eric Blore

A nightclub singer and a private eye, both pretending to be someone they're not, meet on a cruise ship in a passable musical comedy that ought to be better, considering the level of talent involved. It was Doris Day's first screen acting role. The Epstein brothers wrote the script, with some additional work by I.A.L. Diamond. Busby Berkeley did the choreography. Look for the "Casablanca" references.

Janis Paige

(1922-2024)

Barbie (2023)

 

BARBIE  (2023)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Greta Gerwig

    Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Kate McKinnon,

    America Ferrera, Ariana Greenblatt, Michael Cera,

    Will Ferrell, Rhea Perlman, Simu Liu, Issa Rae

"Barbie" is the most garish, candy-colored product-placement movie ever, and the most subversive. It's a measure of Greta Gerwig's skill as a filmmaker that it manages to be both. It's about what happens when Barbie (Margot Robbie) and Ken (Ryan Gosling) cross over into the real world and find that it's nothing like Barbieland, and then go back to Barbieland and find that it's changing, too. Everything's staged the way it might be imagined by a little girl playing with dolls, the little girl being Gerwig, smart, devious, playful, and up to something more than just playing with dolls. The first woman-directed feature to make more than $1 billion at the box office. Even the Kens out there ought to have a good time.

Strangers In Paradise (1984)

 

STRANGERS IN PARADISE  (1984)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Ulli Lommel

    Ulli Lommel, Ken Letner, Thom Jones,

    Cliff Brisbois, Paul Murray, Gloria McCord,

    Ann Price, Bette Chapel, Evakay Favia

A time-travel sci-fi musical about a stage-show hypnotist who gets put on ice in Blitz-era London and thawed out 40 years later in punk-era Los Angeles. Lommel shot this on a shoestring, but he makes the most of that. The songs are catchy and the dance routines, especially the production number set in a bowling alley, are lively and fun. It's where "Cabaret" meets "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" meets early MTV, and a movie that deserves a cult following, at least. See it and see for yourself.

A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To the Forum (1966)

 

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY 

TO THE FORUM  (1966)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Richard Lester

    Zero Mostel, Phil Silvers, Jack Gilford, Buster Keaton,

    Michael Crawford, Michael Hordern, Annette Andre,

    Leon Greene, Roy Kinnear, Peter Butterworth, Alfie Bass

A frantically paced musical farce based on a hit Broadway play based on a comedy by Plautus, about slaves and slave girls, senators and soldiers, virgins and courtesans, all chasing each other around ancient Rome. Farce almost always works better on the stage, where the split-second timing it requires can't be faked. Lester keeps everything moving real fast, but speed alone isn't enough, and gags that might've had a theater audience roaring can seem too broad on the screen, even in something as raucous as this. (The only key player who doesn't overact is Buster Keaton.) Filmed in Spain, on sets left over from "The Fall of the Roman Empire".

Colleen (1936)

 

COLLEEN  (1936)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Alfred E. Green

    Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, Joan Blondell,

    Jack Oakie, Hugh Herbert, Louise Fazenda,

    Marie Wilson, Berton Churchill, Hobart Cavanaugh

Dick's charming, Ruby's cute, Jack's obnoxious and Joan's nobody's fool in a mostly disposable Warner Bros musical about, well, the story doesn't really matter. Busby Berkeley wasn't involved, but his influence on the production numbers is obvious. Oakie and Blondell hoofing it through "Boulevardier From the Bronx" is the unexpected highlight.

Three Cheers For the Girls (1943)

THREE CHEERS FOR THE GIRLS  (1943)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Jean Negulesco

A compilation of clips from Warner Bros musicals, with the spotlight on the chorus girls whose bare legs, smiling closeups and eye-catching costumes made those outlandish production numbers so much fun to watch. What would Busby Berkeley have done without them?