Wake Up and Live

Another classic motion picture that has never been available on video and another shame for eager classic movie fans. This 90 minute musical has everything you could ever hope for from a film. Great songs, dancing, comedy, drama, suspense and Alice Faye! The "feud' between Ben Bernie and Walter Winchell (as real as the "feud" of Jack Benny and Fred Allen) inspired this film which takes place during the great days of live radio.

Bernie and Winchell are the main attractions here but Jack Haley, Alice Faye, Patsy Kelly and Ned Sparks are the real stars of this picture. With the fine backing of Fox, this film was one in the long series of musicals featuring Faye and a stellar supporting cast. It is in this film that she introduces the standard classic song, "There's A Lull In My Life".

Jack Haley is featured as a singer who suffers from mike fright. Actually, Haley's wonderful singing voice is dubbed in this film by Buddy Clark! For trivia fans, Haley refers to this role in his next picture, "Rebecca Of Sunnybrook Farm", when he lets a young girl who is afraid of microphones know that he was once afraid of them too.

The film is a timepiece of an era long gone. If you ever get the chance to see this great film with all of its wonderful songs, "It's Swell Of You","Wake Up And Live" and, "Never In A Million Years", you won't be mislead.

Usually Jack Haley was placed as second leads or comic reliefs in lousy movies, and while Wake Up and Live isn't a classic, he is given the inarguable lead and almost every song to sing. This mistaken identity comedy is set amidst a faux rivalry between bandleader Ben Barnes and reporter Walter Winchell, who play themselves! While they try to insult and one-up each other, Jack Haley tries to make it as a singer, only he panics whenever he sees a microphone. Alice Faye, a singer, tries to help him get over his "mic fright" but turning the microphone without his knowledge. His voice floods into an entire radio station, and everyone loves him! The only trouble is no one knows who the "Phantom Troubadour" is and Jack doesn't know he's famous.

It's a pretty cute setup, and Jack Haley is given the cute and catchy songs "Never in a Million Years" and "It's Swell of You" to show off his voice. Alice is given one song, and Ben and Walter are given plenty of good-natured banter. Among the supporting players, you'll find Patsy Kelly, Ned Sparks, Miles Mander, and a couple of jaw-dropping numbers by the Condos Brothers. If you liked Pigskin Parade, with Jack and Patsy, you'll probably like this one.

Good, Old-fashioned musical of the kind no longer made in Hollywood - partly because musicals went out of style and partly because of the antiquated subject matter. In this case, you have to be of a certain age to appreciate the storyline. It concerns a made-up feud between two old-time names, Ben Bernie who was a band leader, and newspaper columnist Walter Winchell. The feud was carried on mainly on radio and in newspapers.

Have I lost you yet? If so, you're probably too young to remember any of the stars or the songs. Alice Faye was as famous as she was pretty, but Jack Haley had yet to achieve immortality as the Tinman in 'The Wizard Of Oz". Patsy Kelly had a long career as an abrasive comedienne in many movies and Joan Davis had yet to hit it big in television. And radio was the main medium in those days - no TV or DVDs or internet or any related device.

Us old-timers can appreciate, but you young folks who are movie archaeologists will find plenty to like here, including several good songs which were popular a long time ago, like "Never In A Million Years" and "There's A Lull In My Life", and the dubbed voice of Buddy Clark, a Golden Age singer. If you can find this picture, watch it - as far as I know it hasn't been released in any format yet.

Fun musical comedy starring Jack Haley as part of a vaudeville team who have come to try out their act at a radio center, but he blows the audition because of "mike fright" - and his female partner, apparently really lacking in patience or loyalty, immediately drops him. He gets hired on as a guide there, and one day sings into a mike, not realizing that his vocals are going out live on the air. He has a great voice and is an immediate sensation, but since no one knows who did the singing, he becomes famous as the "Phantom Troubadour". Meanwhile, he meets a beautiful female singer (Alice Faye) whose radio show "Wake Up and Live" has just been canned by the network for lack of jokes. She decides to help him get over his mike fright - by having him come to her place each day to "practice" singing into a microphone, which unknown to him is putting his voice out live on the air every day!

With enjoyable, catchy songs (particularly the title song), a couple of fabulous tab dance numbers, Alice Faye looking absolutely gorgeous on the big screen, funny and likable Jack Haley, plus a fantastic looking print shown at a screening at Cinecon 43 in Hollywood, this film proved to be a real winner and a treat to see. A subplot in this film involves a feud between real life personalities Walter Winchell and orchestra leader, Ben Bernie, who appear as themselves. Character actors Patsy Kelly and especially Ned Sparks (who is hilarious here) add a touch of humor to the mix. A very entertaining film.

Fox musicals are often weighed down by leaden screenplays, dull camera-work, irrelevant specialty acts, and personalities with not that much personality. Some of those traits are evident in this musical-comedy piffle about the Walter Winchell-Ben Bernie feud, but there are compensating pleasures. High among them is Alice Faye warbling good Gordon-Revel songs such as "There's a Lull in My Life" (a surprisingly boring arrangement of it, though, and she's unflatteringly gowned); also, a genuinely funny second couple in Patsy Kelly and Ned Sparks; also, a specialty dance by Joan Davis. Jack Haley's an adequate leading man, though not a particularly charismatic one, and, since the plot turns on his golden voice, his songs are dubbed by Buddy Clark. (Haley could sing, but not well enough to be a "phantom troubadour.") It's brisk and reasonably comical, the musical numbers are fine, and the production bloat that hobbled so many Fox musicals over the next decade is nowhere evident.