It's a Great Feeling

This is a terrific little film. Light entertainment, nothing to think about, just sit back watch the stars of Hollywood's Golden Age and enjoy. Any movie with Dennis Morgan AND Jack Carson has to be good, and Doris Day pretties up the whole thing. Lots of cameos by Hollywood's best and lots of talent. I recommend this movie when you're tired and stressed and just want a good movie to relax to. The other great thing about this movie is you never know who will show up. Gary Cooper and Dennis Morgan sitting at a drug store counter, Coop sipping Coke, Dennis prattling on and Coop just saying "Yup." Just goes to show you don't need to say a lot, especially a lot of "F" words to show your talent. Nobody in Hollywood today comes up to these stars in terms of talent and class.

This was really a picture to promote new talent Doris Day at the time by her studio, Warner Bros. Dennis Morgan & Jack Carson play themselves, trying to get Day (who plays a studio waitress) into the movies. The story and songs (except Cafe Rendezvous) are totally forgettable. The fun part are cameos from nearly every Warners actor at the time including Ronald Reagan, Jane Wyman, Danny Kaye, Gary Cooper, Sydney Greenstreet, Patricia Neal, Joan Crawford, Eleanor Parker, Edward G. Robinson, Errol Flynn and even directors David Butler (who directed this), Raoul Walsh (High Sierra, White Heat), Michael Curtiz (Yankee Doodle Dandy, Casablanca) & King Vidor (Beyond the Forest, The Fountainhead). Tailored for Day fans or classic film buffs. 2 1/2 stars out of 4.

Poor Doris Day, working in the Warner Brothers studio commissary hoping for her big break in films. It might be coming due to the fact that no director wants to work with Jack Carson any more. So Carson gets the idea he's going to direct the next film he does with Dennis Morgan. And since no leading lady wants to work with him, the team needs a fresh face.

Morgan and Carson did a series of films at Warner Brothers who were trying to create a Crosby-Hope tandem of their own. They were good,but not as good. It really helped Bing and Bob to have two of the top rated radio shows in the country where every week you could guarantee that the two of them would have a jab or two at the other's expense. And they guested on each other's show innumerable times. This provided a built in publicity machine that Morgan and Carson couldn't possibly compete with.

This was the last of their films as a team and Warners did something here that Paramount couldn't do for Bing and Bob. That was have the boys play themselves and try to get a leading lady. At Paramount that job was sewed up by Dorothy Lamour.

Dennis Morgan had a pleasing Irish tenor voice. Unfortunately Warners also didn't do as well by him as Paramount did by Crosby in the way of songs. If you can remember any of the songs from any of the Morgan- Carson films, God Bless You. The ones that Bing sang made it to the top of the charts.

That being said, Morgan and Carson were fine performers in their own right and the film is a nice piece of nostalgia seeing all the cameo appearances by various stars working at Warner Brothers at the time. All the Crosby-Hope monkeyshines are done well by them.

Try as they may, Doris Day gets fed up and just wants to go back to Gurkey's Corners, Wisconsin and marry fiancée Jeffrey Bushdinkel.

But you got to watch the movie to learn about Jeffrey Bushdinkel.

This one of good natured spoofs on Hollywood that is set in a real studio and has a number of stars appearing as themselves, usually satirizing their screen personalities. Unlike many films of this type the stars don't out stay their welcome, and are sometimes genuinely funny. The movie is no classic (certainly it's no SINGING IN THE RAIN) but it passes the time agreeably enough and leaves the impression , whether true or not, that the cast and crew had a good time making it. The stars; Dennis Morgan, Jack Carson and Doris Day; work well together. Highlights are Dennis Morgan and Doris Day singing a very pleasant duet, Jack Carson doing an impression on Maurice Chevalier and Irving Bacon in a funny sketch as railway station information clerk.

Doris Day was already a singing sensation by the time she made her first film alongside her at-the-time sweetie-pie Jack Carson. She shared the screen with Jack in her second and third films, and their chemistry was so fantastic, those early films are always a pleasure to watch. In her third film, It's a Great Feeling, Doris plays a waitress with dreams of stardom. She has a character name, but virtually everyone else in the film plays themselves, which is pretty cute. Jack Carson and Dennis Morgan-playing themselves-have ulterior motives when they offer to help Doris start her acting career, and along the way, we're treated to cameos by Gary Cooper, Joan Crawford, Michael Curtiz, Danny Kaye, Eleanor Parker, Patricia Neal, Ronald Reagan, Edward G. Robinson, King Vidor, Raoul Walsh, Jane Wyman, and Errol Flynn.

Chalk full of well-known songs like "Blame My Absent-Minded Heart" and "That Was a Big Fat Lie", you'll be entertained from start to finish. It shows a funny, delightful side to the golden age of Hollywood, and it's adorable to see big stars making fun of themselves. For example, Joan Crawford, fresh from her Oscar for Mildred Pierce, slaps Jack Carson across the face, mimicking her famous slap from her earlier film. Rent this one when you're in the mood for something light and fun, and I guarantee Doris and Jack will give you a great feeling.