Twenty Million Sweethearts

Pushy talent agent (Pat O'Brien) makes a radio star out of a singing waiter (Dick Powell). Powell's new heartthrob status means he has to remain single in the public eye but he wants to marry Ginger Rogers. So O'Brien schemes to break them up. Pat O'Brien talks so fast in this I'm surprised he was ever able to catch a breath. Dick Powell's singing is good and he has a rootable quality about him. Ginger's likable and fun. Not one of her better roles but okay. This is an amusing musical comedy. Some laughs and nice songs. One of the best parts is singing quartet The Mills Brothers. This may not be a highlight in the careers of the stars but it's an entertaining way to pass the time. Any movie with Allen Jenkins in it can't be bad.

When Lee Tracy plays a promoter who gets fired but tries to promote a nobody anyhow, that's chutzpa; when Pat O'Brien is in the role, it just seems like failure with bluster. If Tracy tried to break up the happy couple it would be playing the "game" too far, and he'd really regret it later. O'Brien just seems like a heel, and there's no sense of his remorse even when he belatedly fixes things up. RKO's similar PROFESSIONAL SWEETHEART, also with Ginger Rogers and made the year prior, is a much better, much funnier film, although even it doesn't have the timing and ensemble playing of the very best Warners films. Unfortunately, TWENTY MILLION SWEETHEARTS isn't one of the best Warners films by a long shot; it's too long, too flabby, not smartly written, and with a weaker cast than the RKO film (Cawthorne is not Ratoff). The story has Powell singing several songs more than once, and he sings them all the way through each time. And they're not great songs. The Mills Brothers are great, but their two numbers are placed back-to-back (perhaps to more easily excise them in the South). And the plot doesn't really make much sense. One has to assume that this was made LATE in 1934, after the stringent implementation of the Production Code. (But Ginger is splendid anyhow.)

What a fun film, and what an education about the entertainment field, taking us back to the early '30s and the importance of radio.

Pat O'Brien has one of his wheeler-dealer roles as Russell Blake, an agent who's not delivering the great talent he's promised his boss but keeps getting pay advances nonetheless. Finally he's fired. However, at a restaurant, he hears a singing waiter, Buddy Clayton (Dick Powell) do a goofy "The Man on the Flying Trapeze" and brings him to the attention of the radio station. Reluctantly, his boss (Joseph Cawthorne) gives Buddy an audition - and is immediately sorry. Admittedly it's hard to hear Buddy's real voice singing the Flying Trapeze song.

Eventually, however, everyone hears Buddy sing and a radio show sponsor wants him. The current singer, Peggy Cornell (Ginger Rogers) clicks with Buddy, which makes for complications.

The score by Dubin and Warren is very good, as well as other songs, and there are performances by the Mills Brothers, bandleader Ted Fio Rito, Ginger Rogers, and The Radio Rogues.

The versatile Dick Powell had a beautiful tenor voice, showcased here, and Rogers is delightful. They made a cute couple. Besides his in front of the camera talent, Powell was a very astute businessman and had a keen eye for talent himself. During his career, he acted, produced, directed, and was responsible for giving Aaron Spelling and Sam Peckinpah their starts. Rogers of course would go on to do her films with Astaire.

Fun film, some good music, loved the cast.

This is one of the early Hollywood musicals that retained some of the characteristics of vaudeville and stage shows like the Ziegfeld Follies. It has a plot that is more than the usual thin plots of most such films that just tie the song and dance numbers together. This one has some historical value in its portrayal of radio productions and the era in which radio ruled the waves and the hearts and minds of people everywhere.

Modern audiences won't be very taken by what passes as the comedy in "Twenty Million Sweethearts." Most fans from the mid-20th century on didn't care much either for the fast-talking, bombastic personas such as Pat O'Brien sometimes played, as he does here. That was something that apparently enjoyed a short stint of popularity in early sound pictures, but quickly died out within a few years. O'Brien's Rush Blake is as much a cad as he is a good guy, and while his boisterous character is just tolerable, his last tirade toward the end of the film is way overboard. It's not only unnecessary, but it would have improved the film to have left that on the cutting room floor. The only real comedy is in the short scenes with Allen Jenkins who plays Pete, host of a children's afternoon radio show.

But for most of this movie, audiences are in for a treat, seeing the singing that was popular at that time. Dick Powell had a very good tenor voice, and he plays a very likeable Buddy Clayton. And opposite him is a very young Ginger Rogers as Peggy Cornell, who shows that she could sing a nice tune. And, another special reason for seeing and enjoying this film is the Mills Brothers. This was just the second of a dozen films the famous singing foursome would be in. This is in their early years with some of the humorous tunes they sang then. By the 1940s, they would skyrocket on the music charts with many hit tunes over three decades. Performing until the early 1970s, the Mills Brothers would record more than 2,000 songs that sold more than 50 million records.

No other artists or groups could sing their top hits tunes as well, and no others even tried to record some of their best tunes. The lasting talent and quality of the Mills Brothers is proven as some of their top tunes are still heard on radio music programs and in occasional modern films. Once one heard these songs, they'd be remembered forever as sung by the Mills Brothers - "Paper Doll" of 1943, "St. Louis Blues" of 1944, "You Always Hurt the One You Love" of 1944, "Glow-Worm" of 1952, "Memory Lane" of 1956, "Say Si Si" of 1964, "Dream a Little Dream of Me" of 1968, and "Dream" of 1969.

This is a movie to enjoy the old-fashioned type of stage shows, the heyday of radio entertainment, and a look at top and upcoming musical talents of the time.

The best humorous line in the fine was by Pete, when actor Jenkins says, "I hate kids. I think every child should be born at the age of 20. Maybe they'd have some sense."

Fast-talking agent (O'Brien) promotes radio career of promising crooner (Powell) despite obstacles.

The first half is very enjoyable with a behind-the-scenes look at radio, the Mills Brothers, O'Brien's matchless chutzpah, and Powell's knockout rendition of "I'll String Along with You". Apparently, however, the screenwriters had another 30 minutes to fill, so they recycled much of the first half. The trouble is that unlike love and the old song, the plot etc. is not better "the second time around". What's really unfortunate is that the fine signature tune is repeated to the point of tedium. Too bad the film didn't quit while ahead.

Of course, watching Rogers at this career stage remains a treat even if she's more subdued than usual. While O'Brien machine guns out more words per second than a dragster spits out rpm's. His promotional drive almost amounts to a force of nature. At the same time, Powell does his tuneful tenor bit as a "Lochinvar from California" heart-throb". However, some of his facial expressions while crooning the musical's last number are borderline clownish.

All in all, the impression is of a pleasant lower-end musical whose repetitive material over- stretches a solid core of performers and a great signature tune.