Cinderella Jones

Cut-rate romantic shenanigans from Warner Bros. and director Busby Berkeley features Joan Leslie as a ditsy band singer who stands to inherit $10,000,000 from a deceased relative--provided she marries a man with a high I.Q. under the deadline. Playing the kind of kooky girl who mistakes a bar of soap for cheese and thinks the 17th President of the United States was named Abraham Jefferson, Leslie's wide-eyed, open-mouthed innocent-act gets a strenuous workout here (she's nearly impossible to take). Songs by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn aren't enough to save the picture, which shoehorns in greedy lawyers, hep-cat professors, and a penniless pianist who wants to "live on love". Poor in all respects, the film sat on the shelf for two years before Warners finally released it. They shouldn't have bothered. NO STARS from ****

Band singer and gunshell loader Joan Leslie is surprised to learn that she has inherited ten million dollars. She must be wed by a certain date to inherit. She was going to marry bandleader Robert Alda, but that money implies an obligation. She wants to marry a genius. So she enrols in an all-male college, where she and chemistry professor William Prince irritate each other.

It was shot and finished by the beginning of 1944, which explains the ending, with an army battalion singing "You Never Know Where You're Going" without the help of Mel Blanc. It's one of those kitchen sink musical comedies, with a large supporting cast including S. Z. Sakall, Edward Everett Horton, Julie Bishop, Hobart Cavanaugh.... well, anyone who could play comedy, three songs by Jules Styne and Sammy Kay, and plenty of comic skits disguised as advancing the plot until the next setback. With a script that looks like it just grew like Topsy, it's quite funny at any given moment, even if the ending is.... well, where did the army get that wedding cake?

Maybe it's just me, but is no one else troubled by the apparent ability of just about everyone in this movie to change who they love and whom they want to marry almost at will. No concept of everlasting love troubles the writer and certainly will not trouble any ensuing marriage that would come from this movie. I just found it disappointing. Joan Leslie is good enough, but haven't we come too far (even by 1946) than to think it's funny that women are stupid. And just too idiotically stupid to continue living. Unlike other commentators I did not think the bubbles from the mouth bit funny at all, I just thought it dumb. Which pretty well sums up the movie for me.

Busby didn't have the $$ to make any spectacular dance scenes, but the musical numbers are still quite good with some artful but floor-bound camera moves. Joan Leslie is lovely, playing an idiotic bimbo with such charm that we blame the script, not her, for her dumb moves. Which is basically the movie's major problem: the film's best gag, bubbles coming out of a character's mouth, is done to death, indicating a worse lack of intelligence on the part of its makers than the one they ascribe to the funny but obviously smarter-than-the-material Leslie.

Any flick directed by B. Berkeley, and has Edward E. Horton (small part) can't be ALL bad. Sure, that silly plot is pretty flimsy, but you also have some respectable song and dance numbers, Robert Alda and Joan Leslie, and of course "Cuddles" Sakall as the stubborn Professor. Judy ( Leslie ) and Tommy ( Alda ) work on a radio show that gives away money and prizes, and helps locate long lost relatives. But there are conditions to be met when they DO find the rightful heir, and the conditions are almost more trouble than they are worth... but in this case, its ten million dollars at stake. Also keep an eye out for Elisha Cook as the "roommate" at college... he was the weakling villain in "Maltese Falcon". The running gag in "Cinderella Jones is the list of malaprops said almost non-stop for the second half of the film. Half the cast ends up in jail, and then we're in court trying to straighten it all out, like any good, respectable, farce. Funny to note that in the credits, Sakall's role is listed as Gabriel Popik, but about halfway through the film, everyone starts calling him "Cuddles", his real nickname. Sit back and enjoy the 90 minute story, as long as you're willing to buy into the silliness.