Mild musical boosted by Miranda's sheer pizazz. I love that wacky part where her tooth tunes into a radio station.
I first seen this movie when I was a boy during the 1940's and liked it very much. I liked it both as a comedy and for the musical numbers.
Lots of problems here. First, three second-stringers are the big stars here.
Some of the flashy Fox musicals of the '40s with Betty Grable or June Haver were fun and very watchable, especially when the leading men were actors like John Payne or Don Ameche who could both act and sing.But Alice Faye and Betty Grable must have been busy elsewhere or maybe turned down this script--which is pretty likely--and Fox used its second string Faye replacement, VIVIAN BLAINE, to play the gal who sings her heart out in some forgettable ballads full of the usual romantic clichés.
I saw this film in 2001 on American Movie Classics (when that channel was still showing commercial-free classic films). The middle section of the film as shown had three ten minute sections which were scrambled and not shown in the proper order.
This is a Carmen Miranda movie, and she's is the main reason to endure the rest of it. For instance: the manic-anything-for-a-laugh humor of Phil Silvers only occasionally raises above annoyance, the lead Michael O'Shea is singularly charmless, the meandering plot poorly peeled off the Cole Porter Broadway success is pretty silly--and only one Porter song makes an appearance in the first ten minutes.
Many of the Fox musicals were wonderful and fun, particularly ones that starred Alice Faye or Betty Grable. This WW II effort, "Something for the Boys" was marginally okay, starring Vivian Blaine, Carmen Miranda, Phil Silvers, Michael O'Shea, Perry Como, Sheila Ryan, and Glenn Langan - not exactly Alice Faye, John Payne, Cesar Romero et al.
As so often happened in this period, Cole Porter's songs from the Michael Todd show that this was nominally based on were cut, except that Carmen Miranda sings a snatch of the title song at the beginning. It's understandable, since Michael Todd produced adult shows and the lyrics are among Porter's most risqué, including the hilarious 'Leader of a Big Time Band.
I just saw this early this morning on the Fox channel quite by accident (my dog woke me up) - I had seen it years ago and thought I remembered it fairly well. As a kid, I had enjoyed it.
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