Copacabana (1947)

Director:

Alfred E. Green

Writers:

László Vadnay (story)
László Vadnay (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

30 May 1947 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Musical

Plot:

Agent has his only client pose as both a French chanteuse and Brazilian bombshell to fool nightclub owner.

Plot Keywords:

Nightclub | Police | Performer | Singer | New York City

Cast

Groucho Marx	...	Lionel Q. Deveraux
Carmen Miranda	...	Carmen Novarro / Mlle. Fifi
Steve Cochran	...	Steve Hunt
Andy Russell	...	Singer Andy Russell
Gloria Jean	...	Anne Stuart
Abel Green	...	Abe Green - Editor of Variety
Louis Sobol	...	Louis Sobol - Columnist (as Louie Sobol)
Earl Wilson	...	Earl Wilson - Columnist
Ralph Sanford	...	Liggett, an Agent
Igor Dega	...	Specialty
Kay Marvis	...	Cigarette Girl (as Kay Gorcey)
Merle McHugh	...	Copa Girl
Dee Turnell	...	Copa Girl
Maxine Fife	...	Announcer, Thing to Sell
Toni Kelly	...	Wilson's Showgirl

Runtime:

92 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #12290) | USA:Passed (National Board of Review) | Finland:K-12

Filming Locations:

New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Beacon Productions

Quotes:

Liggett, an Agent: I've got so many clients, they get in my hair!
Lionel Q. Deveraux: This guy must handle a flea circus.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Flubber (1997)

Soundtrack:

Stranger Things Have Happened

Carmen and Groucho: a pair made in Nonsense-Heaven wasted in second-rate musical

"Copacabana" could've been GREAT fun. Groucho Marx and Carmen Miranda together: weren't they just born for each other? Unfortunately Hollywood has a recurring tendency of shamefully wasting unconventional talent, and "Copacabana" (and Groucho's film career, and Carmen's film career) is a sad evidence thereof. John Wayne, Bing Crosby, Clark Gable or Bob Hope had no problem strutting their old familiar stuff over and over again; but in 1946 Hollywood decreed that the public was tired of Carmen's "exoticism" and Groucho's routines and came up with this B-budget turkey.

The film departs on embarrassingly deprecating premises: that Groucho should play a passé comedian who is no longer funny (!); that Carmen should play a singer who isn't electrifying enough (!), so that she has to assume a new persona as romantic French (!) chanteuse Mlle. Fifi and sing incognito (!). Now, come on: even wearing a mushroom-ish blonde wig and a veil that hides most of her face, who except the very blind wouldn't recognize Carmen Miranda's hyperactive, pure-joy rolling eyes and those eyebrows that look like boomerangs?

The film is a dead duck that only comes to life when Groucho is allowed to deliver his peculiar one-liners and, especially, when Carmen sings and dances her "exotic" numbers (her "romantic" ones are totally unsuited to her talents). There's no point trying to resist irrepressible, unique, sensuous Carmen, with her infectious smile, fine body, the arms and hands that flash like lightning, the athletic legs on the 7-inch platform shoes (her very own creation, mind you, in the early 1930s -- if she had had them patented, she would have died a millionaire), and the eye-popping, gravity-defying costumes. She sparks with such high voltage she's like a shock therapy, a scenic orgasm; we smile just at the sight of how much fun she's having! Never before or after was there anybody remotely like her, a true one-of-a-kind.

But there are four essential things missing in "Copacabana": a) a decent script; b) a bigger budget; c) a minimally creative director and d) Technicolor. "Copacabana" CRIES for color -- it was planned to be shot in color, but the Technicolor preparation process (this was a Beacon Productions movie, not MGM) took so long the producers decided to do it in b&w, as the film HAD to be released simultaneously with the opening of the L.A.'s franchise of NYC's then #1 night-club, "The Copacabana", whose owner was one of the financiers of the film. (By the way, Carmen was the #1 headliner of NYC's Copacabana in the 1940s, she had even a lounge named after her, the "Miranda's Room").

There's a lot of expendable stuff in "Copacabana": pretty much the rest of the cast (especially toothy mellow- voiced ever-grinning dork-looking Andy Russell), and the super-cheesy Steve Cochran/Gloria Jean subplot. The songs are uniformly awful (with the soporific "Je Vous Aime" and "Stranger Things Have Happened" sung T-W-I-C-E each!), with great exceptions being Carmen's tongue-twisting tour-de-force of Brazilian classic choro "Tico-Tico no Fubá" (a major hit in Brazil since 1917 and internationally famous since Ethel Smith's version in Disney's "The Three Caballeros" in 1943; later performed by Denise Dummont in Woody Allen's "Radio Days") and Groucho's performance - - or rather his "anti-performance" - of "Go West".

"Copacabana" is that kind of disappointment that drives you mad with rage, but fans of Carmen and Groucho have got to see it anyway. Shame on Hollywood for wasting such talented, one-of-a-kind performers with second-rate material and filmmakers.