Washington Melodrama

The awesome Frank Morgan (the WIZARD, of course!) is Calvin Claymore, in a pretty calm, low-key role, compared to how we usually see him! Here, he's taking a senator out to try to work up support for his Europe war-children aid group. Takes a whole long time to get the plot going here... the usual song and dance numbers, some with Busby Berkely-type water-unison performances. All of a sudden, about half way through, the action really kicks into high gear; Claymore, who is married, is caught up in a scandal that may or may not be his fault. This one takes some strange turns, with blackmail, politics, and pitting friends and family against each other. Claymore's "wife" and "daughter" play pretty significant roles as well (Fay Holden and Ann Rutherford). Regular film viewers will recognize character actor Douglass Dumbrille as Prosecutor Donnelly; Dumbrille had appeared in films with the Marx Brothers and Bob Hope, usually as the shady, shifty foil. This one kind of goes all around the mulberry bush, as they used to say, but it's certainly entertaining. Director Sylvan Simon died quite young, at 41, about ten years after making this film. Frank Morgan himself would die quite young, at 59, about eight years after this film. Showing on Turner Classics, but with only 131 votes, they must not show this one very frequently. Pretty Good. I always enjoy anything with Frank Morgan.

Frank Morgan (the Wizard of Oz) usually played to perfection the utterly likable fraud, or the erring aging playboy. But around 1940, MGM began to give him the opportunity to play different types of roles in a series of pleasant but not too demanding pictures. In this one, Frank is a steel tycoon who is the head of a relief organization who gets mixed up in the murder of a showgirl. Frank, as always, is absolutely likable, but has one scene where he gets to utterly lose his temper. It's a revelation of a side one almost never sees in his pictures.

Rest of the movie isn't bad, except for a really dull production number early on. (The choreography is surprisingly ragged for MGM.) The acting besides Frank is only fair, the comic interludes painful, but the plot is actually pretty good, and the political debate that provides much of the conflict is eerily reminiscent of the debates about providing food aid to Iraq in Saddam's era. All in all, worth your time, but you might want to fast forward through the "funny" bits.

During the era in which "Washington Melodrama" was made, there must have been a bazillion murder mystery B-movies. However, this film uses the familiar formula and brightens it up with an A-movie treatment. This means that instead of a 60 minute (give or take) running time like a B would have and mostly unknown actors, this one has a few bigger name actors, a running time of 80 minutes and a nice polished MGM look.

When the film begins, Calvin Claymore (Frank Morgan) is in DC pushing for a war relief bill. His family, on the other hand, are traveling about and he's left alone...alone and lonely. So a Senator decides to take him for a night on the town...at one of the strangest nightclubs in film history!* Morgan meets a nice young lady and soon they begins spending time together...platonic time...nothing sexual. However, after breaking off their friendship before it goes further, her vicious boss arrives at her apartment and he murders her. There doesn't appear to be any evidence the boss was there...but there is about Calvin and soon he'll be the #1 suspect. To help save his butt, his daughter (Ann Rutherford) comes to the rescue.

The acting and plot are quite nice and the film enjoyable. Overall, a very good film with a few noir qualities--such as the incredibly brutal murder--one of the nastiest and most vivid of the era!

*The nightclub features a water show...which makes little sense because it would be difficult for the audience to really see the ladies doing their synchronized swimming. In fact, the only way to really see them well is from above...and filmmakers of the era employed this odd technique quite a few times. Odder yet was when audience members were given fishing rods and were told to try to catch the girls!! Weird.

This is a "nice" movie, typical of the times. If you are a Frank Morgan fan, as I am, you will like this film. Ann Rutherford is great with a Spanish accent. Dan Dailey plays the bad guy, and, as usual, is very convincing. All ends well, as it always does in these "old" movies.

This has some cheery trappings but it's a brutal little movie. Dan Dailey could be a mean villain. He certainly is here.

Frank Morgan is framed, but the real noir heroes -- heroines --are the two pretty dancing girls.

This movie has a lot of bite, despite its having been directed by a workaday director and its starring the generally affable -- always, always likeable Morgan