Four Jacks and a Jill

This is almost a shot-for-shot remake of the 1929 "Street Girl," which was equally cheerless but at least had better musical performances... Betty Compson played the violin and Jack Oakie shimmied in that one. But in the hurry to make movies during the war, they made the nimble Ray Bolger boring and whiny. Anne Shirley has great clothes for a homeless girl, and Desi Arnaz is both handsome and comprehensible in English, so you do wonder what happened to him by his "Lucy" days. This was on very late one night, so it was worth watching under those circumstances -- but otherwise, don't bother. This is a dead man's hand, indeed.

What was RKO thinking? ANNE SHIRLEY, who couldn't sing (and whose dancing talent was negligible), was put into a few dismal musical comedies at RKO during the '40s, shortly before she retired from the screen. Martha Mears dubs her voice for a few not especially memorable songs. In fact, the only catchy number in the whole film is the "Boogie Woogie Conga" and it comes too late in the film to salvage it in any way.

RAY BOLGER is the big star here, but even the great Bolger gets very little in the way of strutting his stuff as a hoofer--and the script, which pairs him with Anne Shirley as her romantic interest, has a hard time making them seem like a convincing couple.

At least DESI ARNAZ is likable enough (with less accent than usual), and the reliable HENRY DANIELL is smoothly cast as a villain. But the script is fluff with barely a moment of reality written into it and nobody manages to look or act their best.

A sad little musical easy to forget.

"Four Jacks and a Jill" is a B-musical comedy from RKO which stars Ray Bolger, Anne Shirley and Desi Arnaz.

Nifty (Bolger) is part of a four-piece band. After meeting Nina (Shirley), she is able to help the band secure a date due to her supposed friendship with King Stephan VIII of Aregal. To 'prove' this, she gets a cabbie (Arnaz) to pose as the King. Complications ensue...especially when the real king shows himself.

This is a very slight film...with okay singing, okay dancing and an okay plot. Nothing really memorable here...just simple B-movie shennanigans with nothing to offend nor attract the viewer.

Okay, first of all this is the second remake of RKO's wonderful STREET GIRL. The first remake was THAT GIRL FROM Paris with Lily Pons. Anne Shirley is the faux continental who sings. It sounds like Vera Van doing the actual vocals (Vera sang in DARK VICTORY and DUST BE MY DESTINY). The cutting of this picture is a disaster, which is pretty ironic seeing as the director is a former editor. It is very obvious that scenes were trimmed and transitions shortened. There are holes all over the place. The songs are so-so. One of them, "Boogie Woogie Conga" is almost a carbon copy of "Congo Beso" from HELLZAPOPPIN. For my money, the two best reasons to watch FOUR JACKS are June Havoc and Jack Durant. Durant, late of the team of Mitchell (Frank) and Durant, is quite hilarious as a slightly psychotic gangster. Russian tough mug Constantin Romanoff actually has a few lines in this one. If you're into cinema archeology, watch this one to compare and wonder.

Silly antics, with some song and dance numbers tossed in. Nifty (Ray Bolger, just after doing the Wizard of Oz) does a fun, impressive number right at the start, "I'm in Good Shape". He and his co-horts are musicians in a restaurant, and they share an apartment too. Nifty meets up right off with Nina (Ann Shirley), who doesn't have a place to stay, so of course she moves in with them. As we are in the middle of WW II, and there was a major housing shortage, this would be OK, in spite of the film code being in full force by now. They keep bumping into Noodles, the crime boss, played by Jack Durant. The producers didn't spend much on the script here... its all pretty silly, but it kind of works as long as you don't take it too seriously. Nina thinks she can speak with foreign accents, so that comes in handy. Even Desi Arnaz gets caught up in the plot. According to wikipedia, this was only the third role for Desi, and he was on the musical soundtracks for all three of these roles. This about ten years before I Love Lucy. Its OK, but as we can see, it didn't win any awards. This film was just like watching one of Lucy's schemes gone wrong; maybe that's where Arnaz got the idea. Directed by Jack Hively, who also directed a bunch of "The Saint" movies.