Du Barry was a Lady (1943)

It’s Zeigfeld’s follies gone Rococo crossed with Vargas pin-ups, all set to big band remixes of Cole Porter tunes (well, just 3 of them. The rest are Arthur Freed…).

Three for the Show (1955)

Broadway star Betty Grable discovers she is married to two men and is thrilled, but best friend Marge Champion figures she’ll be the odd one out if she can’t stop that ego-maniacal bitch.

Sensations of 1945 (1944)

Eleanore Powell is a Broadway star who creates a sensation with a series of dangerous publicity stunts. Whether faking her own murder attempt, or putting a circus tent atop a skyscraper, or stopping traffic in Times Square, her irresponsible media-lust is putting people in danger and landing her in jail. It’s up to sweet lug Dennis O’Keefe to show her that free publicity doesn’t have to mean someone gets hurt!

Since there’s not much focus on plot stringing together stunts and show numbers, Sensations takes on a Follies-quality even inviting Ziegfeld alum Sophie Tucker and WC Fields to churn the embers of vaudeville one last time. Tucker does it with grace; Fields falls flat on his face. Cab Calloway, Woody Herman, and Les Paul each deliver flashy music videos conducting their big bands, and plenty of lovely athletic showgirls, and a dozen specialty acts and trick photography bring back the silver age of MGM’s more imaginative musicals of the 1930s.

Powell seems a frenzy of re-invention almost a decade after her Broadway Melody debut she opens with a hectic jitterbug number that moves so fast she can barely be recognized. This is the notorious film where she tap dances in a giant pinball machine — as the pinball! And her dance partner in the finale is a horse, no really, a dancing horse. I can’t make this stuff up. Sensations would turn out to be Powell’s last starring role, but certainly not from a lack of ideas.

Rosalie (1937)

Fans of Eleanor Powell will wonder how she detoured into this Jeanette MacDonald/Nelson Eddy overblown costume piece — and in the role of Jeanette MacDonald no less! Whereas delicate Jeanette would have floated through this pageant with an air of fluttering dignity, pants-wearing Ellie delivers too much punch for a princess. She barks most of her lines and unfortunately comes off as a bitch. A more delicate actress would have softened the barrage of “womanly” insults laid on Nelson Eddy and we would know this meant she was smitten. But with the confidant and athletic Powell delivering the insults you really start to wonder if wooden Eddy is a masochist or just extremely submissive. It’s an electric energy that cost Powell her spotlight, and didn’t fit with MGM’s idea of what a feminine leading lady should be.

Those who are fascinated by Ellie’s unusual (at least on film) gender-play will be thrilled to see her “go all the way” and dress as a man to sneak into a military academy where she leads the cadets in a marching drill in front of a phallic war memorial. While Powell is hardly mannish (and here with Jeanette’s wardrobe and make-up budget she never looked prettier) the production plays with her “masculinity” and dresses her in all extremes of buttoned-downed marching band jackets and crisp uniforms, interspersed with overly feminine gowns with frou-frou puffy sleeves and Jeanette’s corkscrew curls. It’s an inconsistent and mostly unsuccessful gender dichotomy — especially when compared to her smart wardrobe play and winning charisma in the Broadway Melody films.

Her tap numbers are too few and too short — a Pieroette “ballet” on giant drums is an weird jumble of inconsistent imagery, and a brief scene with Ray Bolger makes you wish they’d shared a competitive dance of lightning legwork rather than the time-wasting dialog in the script. Other supporting players are also underused: as the Queen, Edna May Oliver appears briefly in a tiered nightgown that exaggerates her Olive Oil frame, and Frank Morgan does his best to keep the banter rolling as a befuddled monarch with a ventriloquist dummy, but there isn’t enough comedy here to entertain. A sudden accidental revolution in the tiny Balkan monarchy has potential, but is dropped just as quickly. Even the production numbers are too short, following the pattern of the other MacDonald/Eddy films where actual choreography and musical style are ignored for lots and lots of extras (1500 in one scene by some accounts) arranged in expensive costumes and plenty of operetta bombast from Eddy.

Some moments shine, including a stunning solo by Ilona Massey as a nouveau Queen of the Night: she descends a marble staircase followed by an admiring fawn. Nine original songs by Cole Porter include “I’ve a Strange New Rhythm in My Heart”, “Spring Love is in the Air”, “In the Still of the Night”, and “To Love or Not To Love”. An abrupt wedding finale is a lovely tiered cake of gowned women, candelabras, and cellophane drapes, but leaves you wondering what the hell happened.

Other than seeing Eleanor Powell in one of her few starring roles this is a forgettable film that shows no one to advantage, except possibly MGM’s costume department. I can see how this was originally a vehicle for Marion Davies because the sets are jaw-droppingly huge.

Wonder Bar (1934)

Meine Damen und Herren- Mes dames et Messieurs- Ladies and Gentlemen….
He whips her with a whip! He whips her, he whips her, he whips her…
But she loves it!

Wonder Bar is a decadent nightclub somewhere in Paris hosted by Al Wonder a provocateur with biting wit and a stealthy influence over the wealthy and influential patrons who enter his club. Wonder’s lurid exhibitions of impossibly glamorous sado-masochistic performances seduce the curious customers where they become prey to beautiful gold diggers and continental gigolos. All the while the band plays sophisticated foxtrots and waltzes that veer into the psychedelic and surreal thanks to choreographer Busby Berekeley.

After a brief prologue that introduces some of the characters’ back stories, the film unfolds in a single night: a complex la ronde of inter-relationships and overlapping motives. Crooning bandleader Dick Powell pines for the exquisite Dolores del Rio. She loves badboy Ricardo Cortez her dancing partner, but he is ready to cash in on his affair with the wife of an important politician and disappear forever.

Unfortunately the wife has come to retrieve her love token, a diamond bracelet which Cortez is desperately trying to exchange for cash. Her husband reported it stolen and has involved detectives who are putting the heat on Cortez. Fearing his past will be exposed he must get away tonight but Del Rio refuses to let him go. Their relationship climaxes on stage as Cortez whips the face of del Rio, determined to make her despise him!

Meanwhile, Jolson realizes a scandal is imminent and the politician could close Wonder Bar in revenge. He begins to quietly manipulate the situation, paying off the troublesome Cortez and steering the lovesick del Rio to himself. But things go too far. Among the liaisons and affairs there is a murder, a suicide. Love is gained and lost. A crime is covered up and the guilty go free. It’s just another night at Wonder Bar….

“Don’t Say Goodnight”

But don’t worry about the plot. This love n-gon is barely sketched in before being steamrolled by the platinum-wigged Berkeley girls in a dizzying infinity mirror waltz “Don’t Say Goodnight”. Rows of identical chorines chime in with a verse and we have entered Berkeley time-space. They reveal a regiment of phallic columns which might be giant candle tapers dripping with dark wax at the tip. The columns gently glide away revealing more chorines in transparent white skirts. They wave their arms and meander through the columns, which again glide away to reveal men in white tuxedos and black masks.
…more about Wonder Bar