Take a Chance

This is the film version of the Ethel Merman Broadway hit.Not a very good film. Lillian Roth got a second chance to behave and make good in Hollywood with this one and she is the best thing about this dull mess. Good prints are rare because this is a FOX film and they don't give a damn about their past.

Look for young Vivian Vance (Ethel Mertz) in the Eadie Was a Lady Number . .. she get a chorus or two standing on the stairs. Very unexpected.

Buddy Rogers is not a very good actor but at least he's still alive!

James Dunn and Cliff Edwards leave the carnival life when they are rooked by some clever ladies. Eventually, they are reunited with them when everyone turns up at Charles 'Buddy' Rogers' Broadway revue.

It's largely a revue in itself, with Dunn& Edwards undergoing various comical misadventures as they try to crack the Great White way, with occasional production numbers. Eventually, Rogers' revue opens, Lilian Roth sings "Eadie Was A Lady" backed by three girls including Vivian Vance, while Rogers & June Knight sing "It's Only A Paper Moon" in its screen introduction. It's clearly intended as a big movie, based on a show by Nacio Herb Brown & B. G. De Sylva that originally featured Ethel Merman. It had run more than 240 performances in the 1932 season, a huge hit in a bad year for the legitimate stage. There are three musical numbers by Vincent Youmans, and E. Y. Harburg did the lyrics to several of the songs.

TAKE A CHANCE is a musical comedy that's all over the board. Based on a successful 1932 Broadway production the story starts out in a carny and ends up in a theater production with songs and much knock-about comedy. June Knight reprises her Broadway role for the film. The film introduced the standard "It's Only a Paper Moon" which was not in the Broadway show.

The film has two con men (James Dunn and Cliff Edwards) causing much mayhem on the way to accidentally becoming stage stars, with Knight as their accomplice who falls for a young heir (Buddy Rogers) who produces shows. There's also a very hot Lillian Roth as a sometime girlfriend of Dunn's who starts out a la Mae West singing "Come Up and See Me Sometimes" as a kooch number in a carny. Later on she anchors the big production number of "Eadie Was a Lady" which features Vivian Vance among the singers. Roth's role was played by Ethel Merman in the Broadway production.

Cliff Edwards gets a whole number to himself with "I Did It with My Little Ukulele" which includes some animation in a story about his getting washed up on a desert isle. Dunn and Edwards are certainly a lively comic duo (Jack Haley and Sid Silvers had the stage roles) though some of the comedy falls flat. Rogers gets like sixth billing and seems out of place. Then there's Dorothy Lee who shows up now and then to do a swivel-hips bit.

Another highlight is the "Night Owl" number, which is one of those songs you wake up the next morning with it rattling around in your head.

Certainly worth a look to see Lillian Roth in her prime and to get a glimpse of Vivian Vance long before she played the immortal Ethel Mertz on I LOVE LUCY.

I don't think "Take a Chance" would have been a very good film without her, but with June Knight, it's truly godawful! Why? Well, this singing star has no discernable talent and her singing is frequent and terrible! The first number she sings she does impersonations of various singing stars. But they are all terrible...sort of like what you'd expect from a precocious six year-old when they are performing for their family! Perhaps she did this, however, because her regular singing voice is so bad! Regardless, each time she sang, I felt something dying inside me!!

As for the rest of the cast, they are not particularly great....mostly because there's not much plot here. Edwards and James Dunn are on hand to provide comic relief but there isn't much story and their routines seem, well, like routines. A few exceptions occurred, such as Cliff Edwards' cute surreal song about going to sea. Also, Lillian Roth isn't bad....though this is hardly a glowing endorsement.

Overall, this is a bad film....with musical numbers that are sometimes painful to listen to and not a lot of plot to fill in the gaps. Paramount really dropped the ball with this one!

What's to dislike about this movie? Night Owl is a cute tune.Cliff Edwards and James Dunn have a lot of fun. June Knight looks good and Dorothy Lee takes the swivel hip's to a new level.If you can find a copy of this movie you can have an evening of fun.