Twenty Million Sweethearts (1934)

Director:

Ray Enright

Writers:

Paul Finder Moss (story) &
Jerry Wald (story) ...

Release Date:

26 May 1934 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Musical

Plot:

Unscrupulous agent Pat O'Brien makes singing waiter Dick Powell a big radio star while Ginger Rogers, who has lost her own radio show, helps Powell.

Plot Keywords:

Radio | Waiter | Talent Scout | New York City | Restaurant

Cast

Pat O'Brien	...	Russell Edward 'Rush' Blake
Dick Powell	...	Buddy Clayton
Ginger Rogers	...	Peggy Cornell
The Mills Brothers	...	Themselves (as The Four Mills Brothers)
Ted Fio Rito	...	Himself - Bandleader and Pianist (as Ted Fio Rito and His Orchestra)
Allen Jenkins	...	'Uncle' Pete
Grant Mitchell	...	Chester A. Sharpe
Joseph Cawthorn	...	Mr. Herbert 'Herbie' Brokman (as Joseph Cawthorne)
Joan Wheeler	...	Marge, the Receptionist
Henry O'Neill	...	Lemuel Tappan
Johnny Arthur	...	Norma Hanson's Secretary
The Radio Rogues	...	Themselves - Comedy Trio (voice) (as The Three Radio Rogues)
Jimmy Hollywood	...	One of The Three Radio Rogues) (voice) (as Jim Hollingwood)
Eddie Bartell	...	One of The Three Radio Rogues (voice)
Henry Taylor	...	One of The Three Radio Rogues (voice)

Also Known As:

Hot Air (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

89 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono | Vitaphone

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #2637)

Company:

First National Pictures

Movie Connections:

Featured in Carnal Knowledge (1971)

Soundtrack:

Out For No Good

"To Sing My Love Songs To"

Twenty Million Sweethearts is out of that era of wonderful musical entertainment that Warner Brothers did the very best of in the Thirties. It's a musical about radio during that quarter of a century when it was the most popular entertainment medium. Dick Powell and Ginger Rogers play a pair of young hopefuls eager to break into radio and Pat O'Brien is Powell's discoverer/manager whose machinations get Powell in the door and almost out of the industry before he's started.

O'Brien played this part so often in those years he could have phoned in the performance, but it's what you expect of him. He finds Powell as a singing waiter doing a boffo version of The Man On The Flying Trapeze, a very popular song in 1934 with it getting a prominent place in It Happened One Night.

Pat may be a little too sharp for his own good, but he does know talent and he brings him to radio station owner Grant Mitchell and sponsor Joseph Cawthorn. They've got a girl singer in Ginger Rogers already, but Ginger and Dick hit it off. But there are complications and they make up the rest of this film.

Harry Warren and Al Dubin wrote most of the original score for this film and the best song in the film is one of my personal favorite Dick Powell number, I'll String Along With You. It's sung both solo and as a duet with Rogers. Powell recorded it and Fair and Warmer for Brunswick records and it enjoyed a good sale during the Depression. It was recycled for Doris Day for her film My Dream Is Your's where it's done as a lullaby to her small son. But when you hear Powell do it, you will hear him at his best as a singer. Interestingly enough Doris's film is also about the radio industry. Powell also does a nice scat version with the Mills Brothers of Out For No Good which is also done by Rogers as a solo.

Twenty Million Sweethearts was done by Ginger on loan out from RKO where she had just signed a long term contract. She had just done Flying Down To Rio, her first with Fred Astaire. Previously she had worked with Powell though not opposite him in 42nd Street and Golddiggers of 1933. Jack Warner thought they'd make a good team together and they did make some beautiful music and beautiful box office. But she made even bigger box office with Flying Down To Rio over at RKO with Astaire and RKO wasn't about to give her up. So the screen team of Powell and Rogers never made another film.

Take note of the performance of Allen Jenkins as the grouchy host of a kid's radio program, he's got some very nice lines. When you hear talk of a Hooper rating, back in the day that referred to the barometer of popularity, like the Nielsen is for today's television. I liked hearing the Radio Rogues, only hearing them mind you, at the beginning of the movie where you hear them do their imitations of the current radio stars. They had appeared in Bing Crosby's We're Not Dressing earlier in the year at Paramount and now that they were not in his film, his imitation is added to their repertoire.

Twenty Million Sweethearts is charming and entertaining with a nice cast going through their usual paces on screen. It may not be the best film ever made about radio, but until the day that one comes along, I'll string along with Twenty Million Sweethearts.