Mon amie Sally

"My Gal Sal" is a Hollywood biopic. And, like most biopics of the era, much of the story is fiction. However, even for a biopic, this one is mostly hooey and is nearly 90% fictional! After all, Paul Dresser's life would have been impossible to accurately portray and yet comply with the Production Code! After all, in real life, Dresser had a mistress who owned a brothel, slept with many prostitutes and later he essentially ate and drank himself to death at age 48! And, when he died he was broke...having spent everything he earned and then some! In fact, he was so broke it took years for him to be properly buried!

The story begins with Paul arguing with his father...something which was pretty accurate, as Paul and his father reportedly had almost no relationship because of this. He then makes his way as a singing at traveling medicine shows, though in real life he ALSO performed as a minstrel...though fortunately this isn't in the film.

His fortunes changed and after writing some successful songs and meeting Sally Elliott, he slowly gained fame. In real life, fame came slower, there was no Sally Elliott and he was in near constant trouble due to his own foolish choices. But in this one, he's a pretty standup guy whose biggest problem is his on again off again relationship with Elliott.

So what is to become of all this? And, is the film worth seeing? As far as whether it's worth seeing, it depends. If you accept that nearly all the story is fiction and just enjoy it for its color cinematography, nice costumes and lovely songs which were lip synched by the leads, then you'll no doubt like the film. As for me, the phoniness of the story made it hard to like...my problem probably because I used to teach history and actually like films to bear more than a passing semblance to the facts. I also didn't like the fictional relationship with Elliott for another reason...their fighting and cooing and fighting got very tiresome after a while.

The plot is silly & preposterous, as is the case most often when it comes to these eye candy extravaganzas, but it is kept alive by the irrepressible charm of Rita Hayworth & Victor Mature, not to mention Fox's customary glowing Technicolor (there are some moments that are not only gorgeous to look at, but also sublimely awe-inspiring and evocative of its Gay 90s milieu).

"My Gal Sal" is basically a nostalgic period musical, about 1890s songwriter Paul Dreiser (Mature) who leaves his country town in Indiana to find a big success on Broadway in New York. He meets and falls in love with a musical performer, a gal named Sally Elliott (Hayworth). They start hating each other at first but soon grow into one another. Their contrived romance is kept afloat by various passable numbers, including the title tune (written by Paul), "On the Big White Way," "The Convict and the Bird", "Liza Jane", and "Mr Volunteer".

Not a classic, but it passes the time. Try to watch it along with Hayworth's other musical of 1942, the gloriously carefree "You Were Never Lovelier" with Fred Astaire.

"My Gal Sal" is not an unpleasant musical, but it gets a more lavish treatment than it deserves. It's a typically fictionalized musical biopic, with Victor Mature playing Paul Dresser, a popular Midwestern songwriter of the "Gay 90s." (For younger readers, that's what the 1890s were called, though the description had to do with high spirits, not sexuality.) Rita Hayworth is Dresser's love interest and the title character. Several of the songs in the movie were not even the work of Dresser, though the title song is. As the movie notes at the beginning, Dresser, born Dreiser, was the older brother of famed novelist Theodore Dreiser, author of that grim classic "An American Tragedy." The screenplay is supposedly based on Dreiser's reflective essay "My Brother Paul." But if it were, this film would be a bit of a drag: Paul Dresser's fame was fairly brief and he died young, and Theodore Dreiser never wrote anything light. Hollywood was wise enough to make up some harmless stuff, pick a beautiful leading lady and play it all for fun.

I think I heard of Paul Dresser and wanted to hear his music. Only song I can say I knew - faintly- was the Wabash song, which turns out to be the Indiana State song. So, yeah, I didn't know much about this story. It was interesting to see the 1890s period sets. Mostly I watched this to see Rita Hayworth. Never saw anything of hers (but I probably did). She is actually a good actress and dances well. Victor Mature seemed to be an odd pick for the role of Paul. But their chemistry on screen was apparent.

It's interesting that Paul started out singing at carnivals before hitting the big time on Broadway. I suppose that's similar to singers/songwriters who toiled away in bars before getting discovered.

Anyway, the movie was comfortable, pleasant, relaxing to watch and gave me a glimpse into a seemingly simpler happy world, even if it's idealistically presented. Thank you TCM for keeping these flicks on the air.

My Gal Sal is a simply splendid movie and it's a true wonder why it's not readily available to buy when some of Rita's less good movies (Lady From Shanghai, Salome) are in abundance.

Victor Mature plays Paul Dresser who's a song writer from the country who meets a gal called Sal (Rita) whom he hates, then eventually loves. She's a big time performer who laughs at his silly little show, so he gets his own back by going and laughing at hers! But they have to put their differences aside soon when her words and his music make a hit song, and he finally gets the break he needs.

Lovely that it was shot in technicolour, and the songs and dances are great fun to watch. Favourite part - where Sal looses her temper with Paul and cuts up all his clothes, leading him to do the same to her, and when he hires a quartet to sing outside her window in the middle of the night for three hours, not letting anyone in the building get any sleep, and they don't even stop singing when people drop potplants, or tip pitchers of water, onto them! 10/10