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

True Love On The Train

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 24 November 2008]

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.

If you make it onto the Hit Parade, you may end up the title of a movie!

[mark.waltz · 6/10 · 1 May 2019]

If you look at the titles of many B films of the 1940's, you will notice that they are names of famous songs that are part of the Great American Songbook. As America entered World War II, Hollywood took pride in its musical past and used these joyful tunes to pack audiences into the movie theaters for several hours. Handsome Allan Jones had been around for some time when Universal began utilizing him in their B musicals. Here, he's a soldier who is utilized in inheritance scheme by the wealthy Evelyn Ankers who needs to be married before the end of the day to fulfill the obligations of her late father's will. She is engaged to David Bruce but because of a mix-up, decides to marry Jones whom she meets out of the blue and as soon as she received her inheritance, have the marriage annulled. But Jones turns the tables on her, and this leads to lots of funny situations where Ankers finds herself like a modern Kate in "Taming of the Shrew" where gradually, she comes to see Jones as the perfect match, not the stuffy Bruce.

Throughout the course of this hour long musical programmer, Jones sings several songs, including the title song (made famous by The Andrews Sisters) and "What is This Thing Called Love", and while his voice may not be considered in step with modern musical trends, in the 1930's and 40's, he was considered pretty hot. Anchors does more wise-cracking than screaming, taking a break from Lon Chaney and Bela Lugosi. Patricia O'Connor takes on the role of the Pepe younger sister, played in this era more famously by Shirley Temple, Marcy McGuire and Peggy Ryan, Universal's usual go-to girl for these type of films.

While she gets top billing, Billie Burke doesn't appear until 20 minutes into the film as their mother, and is as bird-brained on screen as usual. She has some amusing lines, especially her reaction to what happens to Luis Alberni when Jones handles the temperamental man in a very funny way. Minor character actor Harry Hayden gets a bigger part than normal, getting some great lines in as the judge who takes on Jones and Anker's case. This is an amusing screwball comedy that mixes farce with music and romance to provide brief entertainment, and while it may seem out of step with the reality of War, obviously was a great diversion for those working hard at home.

Usual Nonsensical B Musical

[boblipton · 5/10 · 14 August 2019]

Evelyn Ankers inherits $95,000 if she is married before she is 24. The evening before her birthday she's on a train to Chicago to be married to her fiance, dull-as-dishwater David Bruce, when a bunch of singing soldiers get on board, including Allan Jones. Through the connivance of Miss Ankers' sister, Patsy O'Connor, Jones and Miss Ankers wind up married. When they all reach their destination, Miss Ankers wants an annulment, of course, and Mr. Jones does not.

The first half of this movie is amusing, with several songs, including standards, ditties from the Universal catalogue (including the title song) and Cole Porter's "What is this Thing Called Love". After that things slow down in the way of B movies that want get on with their stories, and the singing dies down. Some bright moments are provided by Billie Burke, Luis Alberni and Francis Pierlot, but Mantan Moreland is wasted as a largely standard train porter, and it's up to Harry Hayden to sort out the situation by having Mr. Jones sing a reprise of "What is this Thing Called Love."