Song of the City

Margaret Lindsay was a rather unattractive actress who worked a lot. She therefore was in a lot of interesting movies, just by the law of averages.

This one stars Dean Jagger -- Who knew he was ever young? -- as a ne'er-do-well who ends up with earthy fishermen. Lindsay is the daughter. See, he was going to kill himself but they saved him; and -- well, the plot doesn't hold up under much scrutiny.

Pendleton plays the son of the family. He's an honorable fisherman, not a gangster. He wears clothes that are neither zoot suits not EMS uniforms (as in the Kildare series.) His character is saddled with the somewhat grand name Benvenuto. After Cellini? Who can tell. But he is addressed by that name in virtually every line of dialogue involving him.

A harmless curiosity..

You've got to hand it to MGM. By the late 1930's even their most middling B-pictures' production values would make most of the other studios green with envy. The question is why MGM would lavish their efforts on a predictable soap opera like SONG OF THE CITY-- whose implausible-yet-predictable story line should have never made it past a reader's desk. Implausible? Dean Jagger (as Jeffrey Dean) plays an introspective idler--- he's broke, but still manages to keep a servant on in his plush pad on Knob Hill (could Depression-era audiences really relate to this?) who's just blown through a $150K wad of his girlfriend's dough on a miscalculated stock deal. Don't fret, she's still got $19,850,000.00 to go and she inexplicably loves him. Deano goes on a bender across the bay and falls in the drink. He's rescued (remember this was riding on the crest of MGM's CAPTAIN'S COURAGEOUS) by a bunch of stereotypical Italian fishermen (Nat Pendleton, an Italian?) who happen to have a fetchin' singin' daughter. Complications ensure when the rich girlfriend wants him back. Yawn! Not really a musical, not much of a comedy... absolutely no relation to reality. Blah... 4/10