El mago del aire

This is a "just sit back and enjoy" comedy musical, really doesn't need any critique. Frank Morgan is always fun to watch, and he is typical here, he and Donald Meek carry the film. Some nice songs and dance scenes and a brief appearance of Leo Gorcey (The Bowery Boys) as a bellhop. A movie made for entertainment plain and simple!

Frantic unfunny comedy about how Frank Morgan panicked the nation on radio -- a gloss on Orson Welles' broadcast of WAR OF THE WORLDS -- and the lives, loves and generally unfunny situations surrounding his newfound success. Frank Morgan doubles sixteen times a second and an impossibly young Dan Dailey plays the juvenile lead. Give it a miss.

Veteran film actor Frank Morgan was a generally beloved comical character actor in most of the silent era and the first 2 decades of talkies. Probably, he mostly played supporting roles, as in the 1940 block-buster "Boom Town". But the previous year, of course, he played the title character in the immortal "The Wizard of Oz". Here, again, in 1940, he gets to ham it up, as the star, in this programmer-length musical variety comedy.

As the father of a clan of children, he's trying to restart his entertainment career by switching to radio. In his first performance, he mimics Orson Welles's infamous 1938 radio broadcast, in which he is narrating the invasion of earth by Martians. This scares the nation, thus he is fired. But, he doesn't give up. Next, he organizes a program supposedly featuring various top movie stars, as well as some of his children. He cons well-recognized character actor Donald Meek into believing that these stars will actually show up. Instead, he supposedly mimics a few phrases by each.

Tall, handsome, personable, young Dan Dailey is the second male lead, in a largely romance role. In a year or 2, he would join the armed services, and not restart his film career until 1947, as costar with Betty Grable, in one of her most popular musicals, utilizing his vaudevillian talents in singing, dancing and comedy. He would be featured in more musicals to come, a few with Betty, who regarded him as her favorite leading man during that period. Here, others get to sing.

Zombie-faced and voiced Virginia O'Brien gets her start in films with 2 songs. Somehow, this novelty managed to keep her in films, at MGM, for some years. But, in most cases, including this one, I can't stand her! .........Then, there's mid-teen Leni Lynn, who sings several times, like she's trying to replace former MGM starlet Deanna Durbin's operatic voice, Deanna having since become a star at Universal. Alas, Leni was not destined to repeat Deanna's success..............But, surely, the most impressive young singing talent was African American Charles Holland: 'The Singing Bellhop', made to perform in his 'monkey suit', befitting an African American of the times. I couldn't believe that his very Caruso-like operatic singing wasn't dubbed by some famous Italian opera singer! I didn't see any indication that he was dubbed. Like many talented African American performers, he soon relocated in Europe, which was less racially biased, and became a success..............The distinctive-looking mid-teen Larry Nunn plays one of Morgan's kids. You may remember him from "Strike up the Band" or "Men of Boy's Town". His movie career would last only a couple of years.

Overall, not the greatest entertainment you will ever see or hear, but a reasonably pleasant way to pass the time, if you like Frank Morgan, and I imagine there are some who don't. You will probably have to wait for this to come around on TCM.

This movie is a real mixed bag. While it is moderately entertaining, the story is also pretty ridiculous and formulaic--plus there are a bits and pieces that were just plain bad.

The story is about a lovable conniver played by Frank Morgan--and this is pretty much the role he played in almost every movie he made. However, it's a little bit different this time in that he's a performer on radio and not a typical con man. But, he lies constantly and has a string of ex-wives chasing him--once again, typical Morgan story elements. And, as usual, despite his being disreputable and a horrible father, his kids rally inexplicably to his defense. All this is so formulaic and a retread of so many Morgan movies that I found myself getting bored with the plot.

To make it worse, since this was about producing a radio show, several god-awful acts were included in the movie--as well as one excellent one. The old racist song "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" (singing about the "good old days" of slavery) was performed twice when the film began--once masterfully by a Black bellhop and once horribly by a zombie-like woman who was awfully scary to behold as she sang! Later, it turned out that one of Morgan's daughters could apparently sing, and she sang a couple numbers in the highest pitch operatic style. Technically, I guess it was pretty good, but I hated it and it hurt my ears. I could almost swear I could hear the neighbor's dogs barking as she sang! Now as for Morgan's radio show goes, the initial gimmick was pretty funny, though as it was repeated throughout the movie it just seemed awfully silly. Apparently Morgan's character had a genius for mimicry, as he could perform ALL the voices in a radio drama alone--men, women and children. To do this, the film makers actually dubbed these voices as Morgan's lips moved. Later, it turned out he could reproduce ANY Hollywood star's voice, and he pretended to be Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamarr, Mickey Rooney and Wallace Beery. So all these actors get to make a cameo in the film--or at least their voices did.

So overall, the movie was very predictable, formulaic, silly but still somehow watchable. This is NOT a film I'd recommend you rush to see, but there are certainly worse films out there.

Oh, and by the way, there is a strange mistake in the film due to poor editing. At one point late in the film, Billie Burke says to Morgan "you're a vulture" and then Morgan responds. Then, one of Morgan's other ex-wives begins talking and yet no words come out of her mouth due to an editing mistake. I am really surprised no one caught this, as it was strange to see a woman speak an entire line and yet you can't hear a thing!

I have always like Frank Morgan and he was fun to watch in this entertaining movie. Excellent voice-overs done during his impersonations, lip-synch was perfect. Good direction, and the rest of the cast was a lot of fun. An easy 7.