Swing It Professor

Ever hear of Pinky Tomlinson? He was a singer/songwriter who got his start thanks to Louis Armstrong. If you've watched an Our Gang short and tormented yourself with Alfalfa singing -- if that's the word, which it isn't -- "The Object of My Affection", then you've heard one of his songs. As the nominal lead of this Poverty Row musical, the next-to-last directed by the once-great Marshall Neilan, he makes it seem like they wanted Rudy Vallee, but had to settle for someone less dynamic.

Mr. Tomlinson is fired as a Professor of Music at his college because he doesn't know swing. He goes on the road and winds up in Chicago, where he winds up fronting as owner of a nightclub for Milburn Stone for the object of his affection, Paula Stone (in real life, they were cousins; she was the daughter of the great Fred Stone), who's accepting no favors. Tomlinson brings in his swing-deficient fiancee, Mary Kornman, and there's the usual sex-free sex conflict. There's also a major subplot of Bill Elliott as a competing gangster who thinks Tomlinson is a big, deadly mobster; and Tomlinson sings some songs written by other people.

Given all of these things and the usual Poverty Row values, there's nothing about this movie that should work except for two short dances by Miss Stone; she's dynamite. And, looking at the first fifteen minutes, which starts with a "comedy trio" that aspires to be the Ritz Brothers but lacks their intellectual complexity, and a Hooverville chorus of the Sextet from LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR accompanied by the ocarina, it looks pretty blah. Yet once you get past the minefield of that beginning, the movie finds its legs and becomes moderately entertaining.

College professor at an old college is removed from his position by the staff because he isn't up to date enough and into Swing music. Hitting the road he travels the country looking for work ending up mixed up with gangsters at a night club. Good but not great B-musical that mixes songs and mystery. I'll give extra points to any musical where I don't hate any of the songs and this is one of those times. To be certain there is probably too much music, there seems to be a song every five minutes, but its pleasant enough. The performances are fine, though at times things can get a bit to anarchic as when three actors show up as a weird cross between the Three Stooges and the Ritz Brothers to do a school fight song. Forgive me for not saying more, its just that the film is ultimately forgettable even though it is very enjoyable while its on.

I've seen a couple of Pinky Tomlin's movies and I must say I don't understand his appeal. On screen, he plays a milquetoast sort of knucklehead and his singing is, at best, fair. Yet, despite this, he made a decent number of films. "Swing It Professor" is about average for one of Tomlin's films.

Professor Artemis Roberts (Tomlin) is dismissed from his college because the board feels his taste in music is too old fashioned and boring. For a while, he's homeless but eventually lands on his feet in grand fashion. A mobster wants to open a nightclub and use the Professor as is proxy...the public face of the place. Oddly, some other mobsters soon think that the Professor is a big-time thug...and they want to be his friends! What's next (apart from TONS of singing and dancing)?

There are some pleasant moments in the story but the film suffers from Tomlin's dull persona as well as too many songs....which tended to disrupt the good parts of the film. Overall, a time passer...not much more.