Girl Crazy

This movie isn't really that good a version of the 1930 Broadway Gershwin musical, as it leaves the songs aside and is reworked as more of a comedy vehicle for Wheeler and Woolsey. Eddie Quillan and Arline Judge are the flotsam hero and heroine – not really needed, except to murder ‘But Not For Me'. Dorothy Lee is pretty much wasted with little to do (just a couple of scenes and one song with Bert Wheeler – the classic Ella Fitzgerald later made famous, ‘You've Got What Gets Me').

The best bits really are the ones that are purely silly: the hypnotism scenes between the boys and the bad guy; the cacti dancing to ‘I Got Rhythm' (oddly sung here as ‘I've Got Rhythm' by sparky Kitty Kelly); Mitzi Green and her imitations (particularly of George Arliss!); little Wheeler elected as sheriff and then chased by the village heavy; and the long-distance taxi ride early in the film with the cardboard cop.

So the good news is it is a funny film with lots to enjoy on that front; however this movie doesn't do justice to the stage show; and the photography does most of the cast no favours.

Almost everyone involved hated this film – Quillan and Lee didn't see the finished article until several decades later and the songs are dealt with inappropriately. What a pity that the best movie versions of the Gershwin shows (Porgy and Bess; An American in Paris; and of course the remake of Girl Crazy, in 1943) came after George Gershwin died.

This version of Girl Crazy was the first of three films made from the famous Gershwin Brothers musical. MGM bought the rights from RKO who did this version to do their more famous and much better adaption that starred Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland.

In the tradition of Hollywood RKO junked nearly the entire memorable Gershwin score with only a few numbers left. The main characters of the Broadway story were relegated to the background and a whole new plot was written for RKO's comedy stars Wheeler&Woolsey. It's the reverse of what MGM did when they bought Rio Rita which RKO did film faithful to the Broadway show and turn it into an Abbott&Costello film.

Now if you're a fan of Wheeler&Woolsey that's not the worst thing, if you're a Gershwin purist, skip this one absolutely. All that's left from the Broadway show is Bidin' My Time, But Not For Me, and I've Got Rhythm the last done as a saloon ballad by Kitty Kelly.

Eddie Quillan as the playboy from Chicago gets sent west to grow up a little, but instead he brings the nightlife of Chicago out west when he opens a dude ranch. One of the people he sends for his sharpie Robert Woolsey who gets taxi driver Bert Wheeler to drive him from Chicago to Arizona. Wheeler's not a total dummy however, he does have his own reasons for fleeing the Windy City.

The two of them get to tangle with tough guy Stanley Fields out west and of course they come out on top.

Somehow RKO persuaded the Gershwin Brothers to write one original song for this film and it was done by Bert Wheeler and Dorothy Lee and it's entitled You've Got What Gets Me. It's worse than any of the discarded stuff from Broadway which includes Could You Use Me, Embraceable You, and Sam and Delilah. I think George and Ira pulled this one from the trunk.

This film is the worst of the three versions of Girl Crazy and far from the best Wheeler&Woolsey.

Mr. Oliver summed up "Girl Crazy" very well. I found a collecter's copy of this, mostly to catch Mitzi Green's performance. Mitzi, born in 1920, worked in fifteen films before she was thirteen. Mitzi, at least in this film, was completely different than anything before or after her. Not the sweet, loving little girl... not Mitzi. Here she's a 12 year old flapper, with just the right amount of brattyness to be sweet, smarter than anyone else, and with a talent for "imitations" of the popular singers of the epoch. She had only one short tap dance number that didn't really show her talent. And I'll bet her colleagues loved working with her... for once a child actress who isn't a scene stealer!

Much to my surprise, I found this practically forgotten film has a score and lyrics by the Gershwin brothers, and one of the funniest casts ever, none of whom I'd ever heard of. I generally avoid comedies like the plague, mostly because the modern ones don't seem to be very funny, but this comedy is fast, non-stop, and really funny, right down to the uncredited walk-ons. The scenes & jokes are clever, instead of stupid.... multi-faceted jokes and intelligent slapstick that never lags. The speed and cleverness of it reminds me of the first few minutes of "Romancing the Stone".

Only a few of Mitzi's films are available on video in the classics collectors' market. Her screen time is limited to about 15-20 minutes but, as always, she's worth watching and remembering. The combination of Wheeler & Woolsey, the Gershwin bros. and Mitzi Green make this a film well worth seeing.

I saw this early RKO musical-comedy only for the music. The tagline, "Sensational Gershwin Songs", intrigued me so I wanted to see it. Though it has two Gershwin songs, including the memorable "I Got Rhythm", "Girl Crazy" is less a full-fledged musical than an endearingly riotous comedy, one of the funniest I have seen. IT is so funny, it hurts! The last time I laughed so hard in a movie was a Laurel & Hardy Two-Reeler called "Two Tars"(1928).

It has one hilarious gag after another. I wouldn't spoil the fun, but the "hypnotism" scene involving Woolsey & Wheeler and the buffoonish cowboy is priceless.

If you like Marx Bros, you will definitely like "Girl Crazy".

Easy. First you remove most of the songs, and then you give one of the most popular comedy teams of the day nothing to work with. All downhill from there. I really don't understand why the producers removed songs and inserted a couple of tuneless ones in their place. The new ones sounded like Gershwin rejects they had stashed in a trunk somewhere. "I Got Rhythm" could have been a show-stopper but it took place in a night club, in one of the most bizarre, surreal musical numbers ever committed to film. I think jaw-dropping is an apt term.

In the early 30's, Wheeler and Woolsey were one of the best comedy teams extant. They had made "Hook,Line and Sinker", and "Half Shot At Sunrise", both in 1930. Now, those were funny pictures with good, funny material. "Girl Crazy" was reissued with "Peach-O-Reno" by Warner Archives collection, and there is hardly an unforced laugh in either one. Dreadfully unfunny movies.

I could go on and on but why bother. My rating is more a reflection of disappointment than anything else. But The Gershwins and Wheeler and Woolsey deserved better.