You're a Lucky Fellow, Mr. Smith (1943)

Director:

Felix E. Feist

Writers:

Ben Barzman (writer)
Oscar Brodney (story)

Release Date:

22 October 1943 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Musical

Plot:

A young woman marries a soldier to fulfill the conditions of a will. However, when she gets ready to divorce him...

Plot Keywords:

Soldier | Beautiful Woman | Character Name In Title

Cast

Allan Jones	...	Tony Smith
Evelyn Ankers	...	Lynn Smith
Billie Burke	...	Aunt Harriet Crandall
David Bruce	...	Harvey Jones
Patsy O'Connor	...	Peggy Crandall
Stanley Clements	...	Alexander Archibald 'Squirt' O'Reilly
Luis Alberni	...	Goreni
Francis Pierlot	...	Doc Webster
Harry Hayden	...	Judge
Mantan Moreland	...	Porter
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ken Darby	...	Himself (as The King's Men)
Jon Dodson	...	Himself (as The King's Men)
The King's Men	...	Themselves
Bud Linn	...	Himself (as The King's Men)
Rad Robinson	...	Himself (as The King's Men)

Runtime:

64 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Sweden:Btl

Company:

Universal Pictures

Soundtrack:

What Is This Thing Called Love?

True Love On The Train

Two years after the Andrews Sisters introduced You're A Lucky Fellow Mr. Smith in Buck Privates some bright fellow at Universal Studios thought it would make a nice catchy title for a film. The result was this very nice screwball comedy with songs about yet another Hollywood heiress, this one marries a soldier.

Romance is not in the picture when Evelyn Ankers marries Allan Jones whom she meets aboard a train. In fact she's going west to marry David Bruce because by the terms of her uncle's will she has to be married by her 24th birthday.

Ankers and her sister Patsy O'Connor are the Hilton sisters of the day, but even Patsy can't see Evelyn marrying a drip like David Bruce who is in the Ralph Bellamy role. Thinking quick on her feet she fakes an illness and gets the train quarantined and Ankers out of desperation marries Jones mainly because he looks and sings real nice.

After that for the rest of the film the entire cast is pulling for Ankers to realize she really did find true love on the train.

As apparently was the fashion, Universal interpolated a couple of really good ballads for Allan Jones to sing, supplementing the usual jive scores of their wartime quickie musicals. Jones is in great voice as he sings What Is This Thing Called Love and Your Eyes Have Told Me So in his campaign to woo and win Evelyn.

As for Ankers it must have been a pleasant change not to be chased by various ghouls and monsters as she normally was over at Universal. For some reason Carl Laemmle, Jr. decided that Evelyn Ankers could scream better than anyone and she was constantly being cast in various werewolf and Frankenstein films the studio put out.

You're A Lucky Fellow Mr. Smith is a dated, but really well done war time comedy with song. As for Jones's character of Tony Smith it takes him the entire run of the film to convince Ankers what a lucky girl she actually was.