Happy Go Lucky

Enjoyable only as an artifact, Paramount's Technicolor musical "Happy Go Lucky" is a film I'd never heard of, despite a terrific cast. Obviously a flop, it still has failed to attract residual film buff attention, now a YouTube freebie.

The movie is pleasant enough, with a Norman Panama/Melvin Frank script, plenty of songs and a completely escapist atmosphere for audiences weary of WW II, but it doesn't connect. At first, with its tropical island setting and cutesy humor it seemed to have endless camp appeal, but no Carmen Miranda to put it over the top.

Instead, Mary Martin and Betty Hutton are appealing in nothing roles, while DIck Powell and Eddie Bracken sweat their way through assignments beneath their dignity. One interesting element has several Black performers cast in decent-sized supporting parts and treated respectfully, rather than only subservient bit parts. But they are not American roles, but instead Caribbean characters.

One odd touch, the Calypso song here "If You Wanna Be Happy for the Rest of Your Life..." (a/k/a "Ugly Woman") falls flat, yet given a different beat, became a Number One novelty hit in 1963 performed by Jimmy Soul. And Jimmy McHugh's "Let's Get Lost" performed by Mary Martin subsequently became a jazz standard after being introduced here, ultimately used as the title for the Chet Baker 1988 docu.

This mediocre film mostly wastes the comic talents of the cast. It's instructive to compare the terrific comic performances of Bracken, Vallee, and Hutton in Preston Stuges films, and their so-so or worse performances here -- few laughs, no wit. Vallee especially is a completely charmless oaf in this film, while he is very funny and charming in a very similar role in The Palm Beach Story. Eric Blore is completely wasted, given almost nothing to do and is photographed in partial shadow in a couple of shots.

There are a couple of good songs, Murder She Says, a Hutton classic with lyrics by Frank Loesser, and Let's Get Lost, a pleasant ballad that has had a modest life beyond this film.

Mary Martin does a good job with her songs, she's energetic and sings as well as she did in her later Broadway shows. But she's a bit weak on charisma and star quality. Dick Powell is competent, but seems bored. It's no wonder that both stars were dropped by Paramount or visa versa soon after this movie. Of course that worked out great, as Martin and Powell did their best work in the years that followed.

Interesting that one of the reviewers here mentioned this movie might have been orignially written as a Crosby-Hope Road picture. I can really understand that that might have been the case.

This is clearly a cast-off Crosby-Hope script with a couple of additional songs for Hutton and Martin. Panama and Frank do their regular "Road" story and the color is nice. All it needs is a patty-cake routine.

Dick Powell is a completely relaxed Island Scavenger and his sidekick, Eddie Bracken, has a girl friend, Betty Hutton, who is fanatically crazy about him. Betty uses an energetic approach which would wear out three sidekicks. Dick's co-star, Mary Martin, flashes a great pair of legs in the show's stopper, "Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay". I was only thirteen when I saw this show and I think she made a leg-man of me. Miss Martin has set out for the sole purpose of catching herself a millionaire, Rudy Vallee. Rudy does the rich shtick very well, through his nose, and is a fore-runner of Mister Howell of Gilligan's Island fame. The site is also somewhat familiar.

Mary Martin and Dick Powell make a healthy, handsome couple who are a pleasure to watch, giving an effortless performance. The movie was aptly named and was a thoroughly satisfactory piece of entertainment. But then, again, she was a fine looking lady in those days and maybe it was just adolescence. By the way, the picture is in really good color.

To get rich, Marjory Stuart, a gold digger, goes to Trinidad and poses as a debutant. The beach boy, Pete, immediately reveals it, but offers to help catch his enemy, Alfred Monroe, on a sailboat. Turns out Marjory's buddy, Bubbles, is Pete's old flame, Wally's buddy. Every well-planned effort to land Monroe ends in slapping simplicity; then Wally's voodoo priestess gives her a love potion that works ...