The story of this film is mainly about a racehorse that's dependent on the fortunes of a Broadway Show, and the protagonists competing for the ownership of the horse and it's entry into the big race. A "bumpkins make good in the city" tale. The music is good, and several tunes became, for a time anyway, standards.
MGM's repuation for great musicals notwithstanding, this is cinematically dull, and even repititous. The number with Powell and Murphy dancing in the park in the rain would seem to be directly "inspired" from the similar number by Astaire and Rogers in TOP HAT. The finale is more or less what one would have been waiting for, but it is perhaps too highbrow for we who are used to a lot more spectacle and sex appeal in the Warner Brothers and RKO musicals.
Here, (and in the previous entry in this series) the chorus girls are noticably slow moving in ball gowns. The set is a huge white staircase with stylized buildings and the names of Broadway greats, living and dead, in neon lights, perhaps to make you think of heaven. Sophie Tucker does her standard song-story about how great Broadway was when she started in the long gone past.(at the time, about twenty years ago) . Eleanor does another long number here, with chorus boys AND her dressed in matching tuxedoes, adding an extra note of sterility to this overly wholesome movie.
Here, (and in the previous entry in this series) the chorus girls are noticably slow moving in ball gowns. The set is a huge white staircase with stylized buildings and the names of Broadway greats, living and dead, in neon lights, perhaps to make you think of heaven. Sophie Tucker does her standard song-story about how great Broadway was when she started in the long gone past.(at the time, about twenty years ago) . Eleanor does another long number here, with chorus boys AND her dressed in matching tuxedoes, adding an extra note of sterility to this overly wholesome movie.