Down to Earth

There is a lot wrong with this movie, but none of it is Rita Hayworth. She plays the part of a goddess briefly visiting earth and not exactly fitting in, which indeed she was. In this movie she comes from a heaven which strangely is managed as both the place of the human afterlife and the abode of the Greek gods. Trailing after her is Edward Everett Horton, providing comic relief, but at a certain point he drops out as the movie becomes more serious and unsettling. There are songs, and they sound all right but nothing is catchy about them. There are dances, and people complaining about the dances, and you can't quite tell whether you're being ribbed for enjoying the dances or ribbed for not enjoying them. Rita Hayworth never gets a romantic dance with a partner, although Marc Platt-- as the friend becoming alienated from the male lead-- gets a few moments to show off his own energetic moves as he and Hayworth, being part of a threesome, dance to a song about how happy they are that is set in a gloomily deserted twilight playground. And how could they be happy? Everyone in the story is angry, jealous, fearful, or violent, and there is no place on earth for love. The movie is dated 1947 and for no obvious reason, men are shown more than once in military uniform. Perhaps the confusion, the uncomfortable jostling of the earthly and the otherworldly, and the threat to the solidarity of the male buddies have something to do with the atmosphere of war's end.

Danny Miller is producing a musical on Broadway, Swinging the Muses, about two war pilots who end up in the days of Greek mythology romanced by a man hungry Terpsichore, the Greek Goddess of song and dance. This portrayal upsets the real Terpsichore who decides to go down to earth and make the musical accurate. Enter once again Mr. Jordan and messenger 7013, to help her come to the land of mortals and into the play, where she gets the lead role easily (using the name of Kitty Pendleton). Terpsichore/Kitty and Danny have constant arguments over the way the musical is being presented, but Danny becomes so infatuated with Kitty that the musical, in a preview, is presented accurately, which when produced becomes an artistic and symphonic production, but bores the audience to sleep or an early exit. When Danny decides to do the musical the way it was intended to be, Kitty storms off the set and asks Mr. Jordan to return to heaven, but Mr. Jordan informs Kitty that Danny needs this play to succeed, since its being backed by a racketeer, Manion, who Danny owes $20,000 to in gambling losses, and if the show flops, Danny will be "rubbed out". Kitty then decides to return and make the show a success, even though she realizes she will have to return to heaven and lose Danny. The movie is good, but really lacks much of the charm of its predecessor, Here Comes Mr. Jordan. The film is a star vehicle for Hayworth, but she is very enchanting in the role. Parks wasn't romantic leading material, but has the talent to get by (still has his singing voice lip-synced). Culver's Mr. Jordan is less charming and a more serious version than Claude Rains' version, but his performance is still admirable. Horton and Gleason are the only ones reprising their roles from the original. The film's setback is that the musical numbers aren't that good and seem to last forever (the last one from the film is OK, but the two versions of the ancient Greek setting musical drag on for an eternity). Still a good film, but you may be lost or disinterested if you didn't watch Here Comes Mr. Jordan. Rating, 7.

I suppose that Technicolour was a big selling point when this film came out (1946). The colour is beautiful to look at, but much of the rest of the film is rather slim. In this film, Rita Hayworth is a muse who becomes upset when she learns that a Broadway musical is going to portray her as a jive crazy love machine. She heads to earth to correct matters and the audience settles in for 101 minutes of unmemorable musical numbers and several poorly choreographed dance scenes.

Allow me to guess what happened here. Columbia was looking for a musical vehicle for Hayworth, then at the top of her career. They had script for a B musical ready to roll, but they needed to beef it up a bit. So what they did was steal a few of the characters from a past hit, HERE COME MR. JORDAN, added Technicolour, and hoped that it would prove enough of a draw. If you do watch this film, note how poorly the JORDAN characters are worked in - especially Max Corkle.

Elements of the Broadway musical DOWN TO EARTH also appear in Fred Astaire's THE BAND WAGON, which came out in 1953 - but the numbers in the later film were far more memorable. I had enjoyed HERE COMES MR. JORDAN, and was curious as to what the sequal would be like. My curiosity has been satisfied - yet another half-baked movie sequel.

Rita Hayworth shows why she was dubbed "The Love Goddess" in this technicolored musical fantasy incorporating some of the supporting players of "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" to flesh out its plot about Terpsichore returning to earth to help producer (Larry Parks) put on a correct version of his mythological musical. Unfortunately, the script doesn't provide Larry Parks with a role up to his Jolson impersonations and the chemistry between them isn't quite enough to make this more than a routine musical.

Rita is perfectly cast as a goddess and is at her most ravishing. She has several good dance routines which she performs with her customary grace and skill. Larry Parks, then riding the crest of his popularity after "The Jolson Story", does a workmanlike job in a lackluster role. But she steals as the spotlight as the Greek muse of the theater, unhappy about the way the nine Muses are being portrayed. Along with an angel (Edward Everett Horton), she is allowed to go down to earth in an attempt to give the show some class. It's a pleasant enough fantasy and gives Rita the chance to do some fancy footwork in dance routines staged by Jack Cole. The good cast includes Roland Culver, James Gleason and Marc Platt.

For more about Rita, watch for my upcoming career article slated for publication in FILMS OF THE GOLDEN AGE sometime soon.

It would seem only natural that the greatest of screen goddesses would be cast as one of the residents of Olympus, but Rita Hayworth more than fills the part. Something tells me that if she and Terpsichore were talking now, Terpsichore would be real happy with Rita.

I don't think she would be all that happy with the film as a whole, but the Greek Deities are a hard subject for the theater. Rodgers&Hart did well by them in By Jupiter, their last original collaboration. But Cole Porter had a misfire with them in Out Of This World. And the team of Doris Fisher and Allan Roberts aren't quite of the caliber of Porter and Rodgers&Hart. No great songs come out of the score here and that certainly would have helped the film a lot.

In Down To Earth, Terpsichore does just that when up in her celestial viewing spot she sees that performer/producer Larry Parks planning a musical comedy that is a satire of the Greek Gods. She's not happy that liberties are being taken with her relations so she comes down and of course gets the dancing lead and the leading man, sort of.

Rita Hayworth was dubbed by Anita Ellis who did her songs in a few of her Forties films. But why people were expecting the voice of Larry Parks in his one duet with Hayworth to be Al Jolson's, those Greek Gods only know. Parks was dubbed by a singer named Hal Derwin and I took a look at Mr. Derwin's credits and he dubbed at various times, Lee Bowman, Gene Nelson, and Bob Cummings in various films. It wasn't Jolson by why would anyone expect that.

Helping out in Down to Earth are three roles from Here Comes Mr. Jordan, one of Columbia's earlier comedy/fantasy hits. Stepping in for Claude Rains as the all knowing Mr. Jordan is Roland Culver. And repeating their roles from Here Comes Mr. Jordan are Edward Everett Horton as the snippy heavenly messenger and James Gleason as the good hearted, but slightly confused Max Corkle who has quit managing fighters and is now an actor's agent. I suppose the job calls for the same skills.

But this film is really Rita Hayworth's show. She's at the height of her screen fame when this was made and one look at her by young fans who might not have been alive when she was will tell you why that woman was the greatest screen sex symbol ever.

So in overcoming a mediocre musical score Rita makes this film as personally her own as Gilda in the previous year. Not as good as Gilda, but all Rita.