Swing Fever

Columbia, RKO,and Republic, among others, turned out escapist wartime musicals by the dozens, and their lack of availability is probably a blessing; this one, from MGM, has sleeker production values but is similarly impoverished of imagination. It's a mishmash involving boxing, swing, hypnosis, Marilyn Maxwell twitching cutely, the unwatchable Ish Kabibble, Nat Pendleton still playing a punch-drunk heavyweight over a decade after "Horse Feathers," and lots of pulchritude to please the boys overseas. (Even Ava Gardner has an unbilled bit.) Kay Kyser could swing it, all right, but he was no actor, and it's almost painful to watch him go through these contrived paces. There's one good number -- no, check that, there's one not-very-good number made bearable by Lena Horne and some good production design -- among lots of trivial swing, and lots of camera trickery in the production numbers, presumably to disguise the paucity of invention. Tommy Dorsey and Harry James show up briefly; they look like they visited the set on lunch hour from other, better movies.