She Loves Me Not

One of the many little 1930's musical comedies that Bing made in his first decade in films, not the best, to me that would be 'Sing You Sinners' a few years later, but this is still enjoyable fare. I disagree with another reviewer who claimed Bing had no sex appeal, and I think a couple of million girls from the era would too. He certainly had a great sense of comedy timing, and was a more than competent actor. But, most people went to hear him sing, and when he does he never disappoints, Although 'Love in Bloom' is the big hit from this movie, I like 'I'm Humming, I'm Whistling and I'm Singing' best, no one could put over a rhythm song as well as Bing! Thankfully, Universal have finally released this film on DVD, so I applaud them, but they still have a few to go from Bing's 30's catalogue!

There is not much by way of originality to this rather overlong comedy but it does give Bing Crosby a chance to croon his way through the charming "Love in Bloom" with his amiable co-star Kitty Carlisle. You see, "Curly" (Miriam Hopkins) is a dancehall gal who's gone and got herself mixed up in a murder. Having the sense not to want to get involved, she flees the scene and ends up in some rooms amidst the Ivy League's finest. She's quite an adaptable young woman, and surrounded in this all-male environment by pin-stripes galore, she decides that being a boy for the duration might be her best line of defence. Certainly from the pursuing "Mugg" (Warren Hymer) but also, she quickly realises, it might help her against the more hormonal students at the university. Fortunately she hooks up with "Paul" (Bing Crosby) and his pal "Buzz" (Edward J. Nugent) who give her a short back and sides before she becomes a bit of a bass-baritone. The question is: for how long can this not very cunning wheeze keep her safe? Things become a darned sight more awkward when the Hollywood producing dad of "Buzz" sends his minions to recruit her for a film, and then when the fiancée of "Paul" (that's Miss Carlisle) starts to put two and two together and get 22. Trying to keep this all out of the glaring eye of publicity is the dean (Henry Stephenson) who just happens to be the father of "Midge". Still with me? Well once we've established the rather slapstick-light credentials of this comedy, the thing rather stutters along mixing it's genres and showcasing some fairly mediocre writing and flat characterisations as "Curly" et al leap from comedic frying pan to fire just once too predictably often. If there is a star, then it has to be Hopkins as she looks like she is having fun throughout, but sadly it's not really contagious. It is watchable enough, and it doesn't hang about - but it's really only that song that stands out.

Miriam Hopkins is the whole show here as a nightclub singer who witnesses a murder and gets out of town. She ends up in Princeton, NJ and is taken in by students, Bing Crosby and Edward Nugent. They cut her hair and pass her off as Crosby's nephew. Meanwhile Bing falls for the dean's daughter, Kitty Carlisle and they sing "Love in Bloom" and "Straight from the Heart." Lots of plot twists but the film runs out of steam before it's over, still it's fun.

From the hotcha number Hopkins sings and dances during the opening credits to the sequence where the movie studio head and crew descend on Princeton to put Hopkins in the movies, she proves herself a delightful comedienne.

Despite first billing, Crosby has little to do outside of his songs. Hopkins steals every scene she's in (not unusual) and is terrific in the singing and dancing numbers. Carlisle is solid in her second film and so is the underrated Nugent.

Henry Stephenson, Henry Kolker, George Barbier, Warrem Hymer, Lynne Overman, Judith Allen, Maude Turner Gordon, Vince Barnett co-star.

Basically remade in 1942 with Judy Canova and again in 1955 with Betty Grable.

I thought this movie was going to be really cute, given the synopsis. Miriam Hopkins is a witness to a murder, so in order to hide herself from the mafia, she dresses in drag at a college fraternity. Looking back, maybe my synopsis-judgment skills weren't working very well.

She Loves Me Not isn't the cutest movie in the world, and it wasn't half as cute as I thought it was going to be. It's always fun to see Miriam Hopkins early in her career, prancing around in her underwear, but most of the plot and gags rely on the audience being too stunned by her near-nudity to pay attention to anything else. For example, she sits Bing Crosby down and gives him a 1934 version of a lap dance, and all he does is scold her and run out of the room. The screenwriters could have given him so many funny jokes during that scene!

Also, Miriam's character is very clearly written to be a nightclub floozie who has no shot at getting the guy. Bing serenades Kitty Carlisle with "Love in Bloom" and never really looks twice at Miriam; therefore, there's no tension in the plot. So, unless you want to see Miriam Hopkins in her underwear, you don't have to watch this one. There are plenty of other movies where you can catch her in her skivvies, or less.

Did any movie idol have less sex appeal than Bing Crosby? (Okay, Robert Young comes close.) What a problem the studios had with Bing--that voice that drove the women mad, combined with an attitude toward women that could best be described as "courteous." Unlike Fred Astaire, the diffident Bing was not lucky enough to find a partner to give the act sex appeal--at least, not until he teamed up with Bob Hope, whose inept wolfishness made Bing's coldness look cool.

In this picture, as in Here Is My Heart the same year, the studio (why?) gave him Kitty Carlisle, the ponderous actress who acts comedy by making like a middle-aged good sport who's being good-naturedly informal with the kids. Even the number Bing adopted for his theme song, "Love in Bloom," doesn't whip up a romantic mood, even when Bing and Kitty, weirdly, sing it as two disembodied heads in a cloudy sky. But a youthful is rather foreclosed by a star who, more than ten years too old for his role, looks like a college professor rather than the undergrad he is supposed to be.

Kitty is further minimised by being sited outside the main plot, one that might have been the inspiration for Some Like It Hot. Miriam Hopkins, as a nightclub dancer (and can she shake a leg! who knew?), witnesses a gangland rubout and, fleeing the gangsters who want to do away with her, ends up at Princeton, where Bing helpfully cuts off her hair and gives her boys' clothes to hide in. Miriam turns out to be the most ungrateful damsel in distress ever rescued, constantly lying, mischief-making, and rather undermining the idea of hiding out by becoming a glutton for publicity. But her antics, rather than pepping up the show, fade away in this staid atmosphere.

Thirties character comedians Warren Hymer and Lynne Overman have some funny business, but the pace sags and the dialogue lacks invention. Fortunately, though, Bing ends up with Kitty without having to kiss her. How he must have been relieved!