Calendar Girl

I enjoyed this movie. It captured the aura of the era better than most 40s productions with many authentic-seeming details. The fire horses were particularly effective. I wonder if they doubled as chariot horses in other movies. One of the most effective devices was having the musicians and singers at their windows, instead of having the music come out of nowhere. The movie made me want to live there! It looked like everyone was having a good time.

The characters were engaging and did clever bits of business--I especially liked the artist on the telephone to his fiancée, the songs were buoyant, the patter was funny--such as the cow painter who couldn't get a word out, the dancing and singing very good. My favorite musical number was The Fireman's Ball which was clever and original but also in keeping with the 1900 setting. (I went back and watched that again because it was so entertaining.) Good line in it about "belle of the brawl." The women were strong-minded as was typical in movies of the war years, and the dresses were beautiful. I'm not a big fan of romantic ballads but I know from listening to 1940s radio shows online that they were hugely popular in that decade so I'm sure the audience liked that part better than I did.

For Republic Pictures this was undoubtedly one of their bigger productions in 1947 and I couldn't help thinking that with a score by top songwriters Jimmy McHugh and Harold Adamson this film might be better known had some major studio did it.

As it is Calendar Girl takes place at the turn of the last century and it concerns life in the artist's colony of Greenwich Village. Two men of the arts from Boston, painter James Ellison and composer William Marshall, arrive in town and take up residence in the artist's boardinghouse of the indulgent Irene Rich who must have a literal last name to put up with the itinerant payments of rents she gets and expects. Another in the house is singer Jane Frazee who both Marshall and Ellison court.

The problem is that Ellison is already engaged to Gail Patrick back in Boston and he's wealthy on his own and just taking a hiatus from the family banking business. He's making a play for Frazee and that's coming between him and Marshall.

As for Marshall he gets a different kind of partnership. Singer Kenny Baker is becoming Hart to his Rodgers and with his tenor is plugging their songs as well.

I can't forget Frazee's father Victor McLaglen who is a fire captain and still regards Frazee as Daddy's Little Girl even after she becomes a celebrity of sorts when Ellison's painting makes her the Calendar Girl of 1901. McLaglen is just his overbearing, lovable, oafish self.

The lack of production values kills what is a nice picture and could have been a classic over at MGM.

The mid-Forties were a time of turn-of-the-century nostalgia by Hollywood studios and the ticket buyers. Provided the actors looked wholesome, the sets were elaborate and the songs appealing, a lot of tickets could be sold by showing an America that was simple, friendly and happy...and far away in time from WWII. Just think of Meet Me in St. Louis, Up in Central Park, The Dolly Sisters, The Shocking Miss Pilgrim, The Harvey Girls and Cover Girl. Republic Pictures, a B level studio if there ever was one, sent out Calendar Girl in 1947. It's an A effort from a B studio, but the final product, while looking good, suffers the same fate of so many movies from B studios...actors who look great and can't act.

It's Greenwich Village in 1900, and moving into a brownstone rooming house are two old friends, aspiring composer Johnny Bennett (William Marshall), big, blonde, poor and innocent, and aspiring artist Steve Adams (James Ellison), big, dark, wealthy and charming. The rooming house is filled with other artists and musicians, ranging from the almost perpetually unbilled Gus Schilling as a painter of horses who spends his time eating bananas and mumbling, to that reliable tenor Kenny Baker. The misunderstandings accumulate like single socks when Johnny and Steve both meet Patricia O'Neil (Jane Frazee), aspiring dancer and daughter of the local fire brigade chief played by Victor McLaglen. It's not long before both men find her special, with Johnny writing songs inspired by her and Steve, that devil, painting her portrait, then submitting it in a calendar competition by adding some leg. Spread liberally throughout the movie is the fireman's jamboree, Delmonico's, the brownstone's patio, a convivial beer garden and Steve and Johnny's rooms. They all get songs to sing there written by Jimmy McHugh (music) and Harold Adamson (lyrics). These two were old pros with many hits between them, and they provide songs that are romantic, melodic and bounce along in the style of the period. If none of the songs are especially memorable, they get the job done nicely. Two, "At the Fireman's Ball" and "Calendar Girl" are nice, indeed.

But by the time the movie is half over, we realize that we're not going to learn anything more about the characters or story than we already have, that the songs will be at a level that won't improve, and that there's a long way to go to the end. And this is because of the casting, which was probably the best Republic Pictures could come up with. Jane Frazee gets top billing. She's a proficient light romantic lead who dances well and looks a lot like Vera Ellen. While she looks about 20, however, she sounds about 35. Marshall and Ellison both look like handsome Hollywood hunks, but neither is believable. Ellison, as usual in his movies, comes across as a self-aware actor. Marshall just seems out of his depth, especially when called upon to do a little dancing and sing the songs he's given. Even Gail Patrick, the quintessential selfish society princess, who plays Steve's rich fiancée from Boston, seems adrift. Well, we'll always have the memory of her as Cornelia Bullock, Carole Lombard's older sister in My Man Godfrey. The problem here, I think, is that we're never sure if we're supposed to detest her or warm up to her.

For me the main reason to see this film is Allan Dwan's wonderful direction. He has the good sense to park it and point it when the action dictates, e.g. in the musical sequences, but he also takes the opportunity to explore every inch of a very complicated set with the camera: up and down the stairs, out the back from low and high, in and out the front door, all around the top studio apartment, and towards the end an enormous crane shot of the house fronts.

And he gets good performances out of the cast. I don't agree with the other comments about the acting. The women are all excellent (Jane Frazee in the lead, Irene Rich as the landlady) and Gail Patrick is downright sensational as the cousin from Boston. Victor McLaglen and James Ellison as the Boston sleaze-bag are both excellent; Kenny Baker works hard at it; Franklin Pangborn always a delight: only William Marshall as the composer is a bit wooden, but then he is the designated sap in the script.

All in all a very nice ensemble piece with good music too. The firemen's ball number is hilarious.

Overcrowded and generally undistinguished Republic musical. Nonetheless, it does have its moments, like the opening hook with Frazee frazzling the boys, or McLaglen's feisty fireman spicing up the screen. Too bad the rather frantic musical scenes don't reach highlight status; after all, the flick has its hopes as a musical. And what's with the many distracting characters just popping in and out without any set-up -- I wish we got to know some better. Then too, what's the big deal between Boston and New York that takes up too much dialogue time. After all, there are many other states sitting among audiences then and now.

The plot itself turns on which guy Frazee will end up with, Ellison or Marshall. Frazee is aptly lively and sweet, but her two suitors are on the forgettably bland side. (Good thing Ellison went on to matinee cowboy movies.) And get a look at the fully-clothed calendar girl so scandalous for 1900; a Playboy version it ain't, but then styles and mores do change.

Anyway, I think the screenplay could have used a lot of sorting-out and a better musical score, if that were possible given scheduling demands. As is, the flick's overall obscurity is not surprsing. All in all, it's not surprising that Republic specialized in cheap cowboy flicks during this same period. So, "Hi-Yo, Silver"!