Make a Wish

For me this film goes in the excellent group because I find myself coming back to it over and over again. The storyline is uncomplicated and perhaps predictable, but the content of the story is a very worthwhile glimpse of a young boy's life during one eventful summer which starts at a boys' camp in Maine. Chip (Bobby Breen) and Pee Wee (Billy Lee) and the other boys make the story forever delightful. Here a young boy, Chip, feels keenly that his happy life is about to be invaded, and he is intent on changing the course of events. With a truly sincere heart and boyish cunning he sets his plan in motion. He is always more clever but also more polite than the adult antagonists he confronts. There is much to love and much to enjoy in this story. The boys in particular are excellent in their parts, nicely developing individual characters. The singing is wonderful, as are the very meaningful expressions on Bobby Breen's face.

Chip (Bobby Breen) is off enjoying summer camp. During his time there, he meets a composer, Johnny Seldon (Basil Rathbone), who is vacationing nearby and the two strike up a friendship. Chip convinces Johnny he needs to hear his mother sing, as she has a gorgeous voice and would be great in his new operetta. When Johnny meets her and hears her sing, he's inspired and insists she star in his show. But when her fiance insists that she not return to the stage, Johnny's heart is broken and Chip is not happy about having this guy as his potential step-father. So, he decides to play cupid and he hopes to get his mother and Johnny together by the end of the story.

Back in the 1930s and early 40s, Bobby Breen was a most unusual movie star. For a small child, he had an incredible voice...so incredible that he later quit films and went on to be a professional singer. As far as his films go, despite being relatively low budgeted, they had a certain likability about them...mostly because Breen seemed like such a sweet kid. This film is no different...with some very catchy songs and Breen once again cute and likable. And, in addition, this time the boy is given better than usual support. While oddly cast, Basil Rathbone is quite nice as the nice-guy composer.

The only thing about this pleasant film I didn't like was the mother's singing...it was even more high pitched than Bobby's and was a bit hard to take. Also, while not a bad thing, the way Chip and Johnny met in the film was a bit creepy by today's standards....with Johnny catching Chips bathing suit and the boy naked in the water asking a stranger for his clothing. In the day, it was a cute scene...today folks might be a big creeped out by it, sadly.

Bobby Breen is at camp where he meets Basil Rathbone. Rathbone is trying to write an opera. When Bobby's mother, Marion Claire comes to visit, Bobby tries to play matchmaker, but she already has an understanding with another man, who wants her to retire from the stage. Rathbone decides to go away, while his valet, Donald Meek, along with Henry Armetta and Leon Errol punch up the score.

It's a thoroughly innocuous and pleasant musical, with Bobby Breen singing several songs, while opera star (and concert violinist) Marion Claire sings the title song twice. She's one of several opera stars who tried out for Hollywood stardom, but this was her only venture into the field.

It's also a rare movie venture for Gertrude Berg, better known for writing and starring in radio's THE GOLDBERGS for twenty years. RKO had four writers (including Al Boasberg) punch up her script, which lends it a rather disjointed air. Still, Breen is a fine boy tenor, and that's what this movie is about in the end.

This musical is mostly pleasant, but is almost entirely predictable after the first few minutes. Everything is watchable, but that's all. Basil Rathbone seems pretty well cast as an eccentric composer, but the plot does not give him all that much to do. Bobby Breen is likable as a young boy at camp, and there are some fairly amusing moments from some of Rathbone's associates. It's easy to pull for the main characters, but any excitement or real interest is dissipated by the completely routine story-line. It's an average musical, no more and no less.

It goes without saying that a musical which is centered around a summer boys' camp can only come off well if (a) the young actors portraying the campers can hold their own with the likes of adult actor Basil Rathbone and (b) if the music featured in the film is truly enjoyable and well performed. It's no wonder that this film was nominated in 1938 for "Best Music, Score", as the music featured throughout is both original and delightful.

As for the young cast members, both Bobby Breen (Chip) and Billy Lee (Pee Wee) were accomplished singers and musicians as kids, and by the time this movie was filmed, they both already had a great deal of stage experience which included vaudeville appearances between their films, aside from the live appearances they both made to promote their films. In the summer of 1938, Sara Hamilton of Photoplay Magazine interviewed Billy Lee. She writes, "Billy was the lad the audiences cheered in Bobby Breen's picture, 'Make A Wish'." However, the professionalism that both boys show in this film as singers and actors, along with the rest of the talented young cast, together with Rathbone (composer, Seldon) and Marion Claire (Chip's mother, a singer for whom Seldon composes his musical) adds up to much more than a run of the mill musical, but to a wonderful movie with a lot of heart.

Among other songs, Breen and Billy Lee are featured in a duet, singing "Polly Wolly Doodle", and Billy supports Breen's lead vocal on the film's most memorable number, "My Campfire Dreams". Singer Marion Claire shines in her operatic vocal numbers, and in her own duet with Breen. This was her only feature film apppearance. Bobby Breen appeared and sang in 8 feature films, plus made a cameo appearance in the film "Johnny Doughboy". Billy Lee appeared in over 40 feature films which featured his various skills as a dancer, musician, singer and actor, and among them, he had a number of starring roles, including "The Biscuit Eater", "War Dogs" and "Reg'lar Fellers", then left acting at age 13.