a real curio

Posted by Philip on Nov 21st 2023

This is a curious musical, for many reasons. First, it is, to my knowledge, the only film made by the major leading man of his time in Broadway musicals,
Alfred Drake. All the more curious, is that the top-billed Mr. Drake is only given a couple of songs to sing, in this great score by Jules Styne and
Sammy Cahn. (But, of course, all of their scores were great.) Although Drake had the pivitol role in the screenplay, leading Lady Janet Blair, has more musical moments than he, as does dancer, Marc Platt. The most musical time and screen footage, however, goes to
Sid Cesar, in his film debut. (I don't believe that Mr. Cesar made another film, until his huge hit on TV, in the 1950's.) In addition to his musical numbers, Cesar does (a very long) monologue about what to expect, when viewing a war film. With his hair blonded,it is obvious that Columbia Pictures wanted to make Mr. Cesar their answer to Goldywn's Danny Kaye. (Kaye had a similar scene, though musical, in his film debut "Up In Arms".) Only watch this to see this early product of Sid Cesar, and if curious, to see
Alfred Drake, who was as big a Broadway (male) musical star in his time, as were Mary Martin and
Ethel Merman, on the distaff side. And, of course, none of these people made it in Hollywood.