Sur l'Avenue

Songs include : He Ain't Got Rhythm - This Year's Kisses - You're Laughing At Me - The Girl on the Police Gazette Slumming On Park Avenue - I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm

"On The Avenue" has been sitting on my video shelf for more than a dozen years - unwatched and overlooked. An oversight.

In spite of one of the other reviews above, the film is hardly the cinema tragedy painted by that reviewer.

Dick Powell, on loan out from Warner Brothers to Fox, Madeline Carroll and Alice Faye and The Ritz Brothers head an all star cast of Hollywood favorites - Joan Davis, Billy Gilbert, Alan Mowbray, Walter Catlett, George Barbier, Cora Witherspoon, Sig Ruman, Stepin Fetchit and others.

The production values are quite high, though the story in uninspired. Beautiful crisp blacks and whites fill the screen. Half a dozen hit tunes - some still performed 70 years later - written by Irving Berlin. Both Powell and Faye are in top voice and each get their share of tunes to introduce.

Alice Faye receives third billing under Powell and Carroll. This was likely one of the last times she would be billed as such - top stardom was right around the corner for her.

The dance routines are very 1930s and staged, somewhat generically, by Seymour Felix - lots of chorus girls and big stages. Sadly, "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm", the most enduring song of the film, is kind of tossed away in a production number of modest proportions.

The Ritz Brothers are an acquired taste, perhaps. They do have some better moments in the film, especially so in the opening number where they are less zany than in the rest of the film. Dance skills? Absolutely!

Madeline Carroll is an attractive woman, but Alice Faye sings, dances and quietly radiant through-out the entire film.

There are some amusing similarities between this film and "Hollywood Hotel" another Dick Powell from 1937 - both are show business stories, Powell gets slapped in the face in both films by a stuck up girl and uses the same facial expression both times, Powell escorts his female star around the circumference of an outdoor fountain at night in both films, Alan Mowbray also appears in both films

It's not a great film or a great musical, but it is as entertaining as many musicals of the era with it's greatest strengths being its score and its 2 top performers, Powell and Faye.

"On the Avenue" was made in 1937 and starred Madeline Carroll, Dick Powell, Alice Faye and the Ritz Brothers. A musical revue does a send-up of a wealthy family, which outrages them. The writer, Gary Blake, accuses the young woman of the family, Mimi Caraway (Carroll) of being a bad sport. She invites him to dinner, and they fall in love. He promises to rewrite the skit. However, Mona Merrick (Faye), the leading lady who is in love with Gary, performs the skit so that the family comes off as even worse. Mimi retaliates by buying the production and planning some big revenge on Gary.

There are some good numbers and wonderful singing by Faye and Powell; alas, the appeal of the Ritz Brothers has always been lost on me. They always do these incredibly long routines in films, and to me, anyway, they're annoying rather than funny.

Madeline Carroll is stunningly beautiful; it's a shame she wasn't in Hollywood longer (in 1938, she was the highest paid actress in Hollywood). She returned to England to work for the war effort and stayed on after the war. Dick Powell, in the course of a 30-year career, reinvented himself several times. Here he is in his first incarnation, that of a juvenile tenor. He's very good and as he evolved into a serious actor and then a director and producer, he only got better. Alice Faye looks great and sings in her beautiful, smooth contralto; her stardom was just about to hit its peak.

All in all, very pleasant. If you're like me, record this and fast forward through the Ritz Brothers.

Picked this up not having heard of this film and it was rather good. I thought it was rather odd not having seen it as it was one of Irving Berlin's. It turns out that it is not one of his best known scores although, 'I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm' and 'Slumming on Park Avenue' are surely good enough. The dance routines were not some of the most famous ones but they are amazing, especially early on and some of the costumes wonderful and certainly rather sexy. The plot of course is silly but we never had to worry because the acting is great and the music and dancing almost never stops. Then we have the Ritz Brothers, I thought their acts would not be too good but they were splendid, not quite The Marx Brothers but not bad at all, there really fast jokes and funny dancing made me smile. I was also surprised to see that Cora Witherspoon was so good with her quirky talking way and odd dance turns as she will be with W C Fields in The Bank Dick (1940).

Alice Faye's singing is a real plus for this movie and Dick Powell sounds pretty good as well. The story is pretty terrible and predictable, but there are lots of good character actors along to help save the day. The dancing is great throughout, really well done. But it's really the Ritz Brothers I wanted to comment on. Is it only me or are they really not that funny? They are great dancers but the skits they performed were for the most part too slap stick for me to find amusing. Overall this movie is well worth seeing and hearing - the singing and dancing is great.

"On the Avenue" is a highly underrated gem from the 30s and one of Alice Faye's best musicals at Fox. It is less well-known than Faye's other Fox musicals such as "Alexander's Ragtime Band", "That Night in Rio" and "Hello, Frisco, Hello". But "On the Avenue" has a taste and class of its own, not to mention lots of great and rollicking tunes including the memorable "Slumming on Park Avenue", "He Ain't Got Rhythm", "I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm", and "This Year's Kisses". Excellent stuff.