Hullabaloo

This movie is a real mixed bag. While it is moderately entertaining, the story is also pretty ridiculous and formulaic--plus there are a bits and pieces that were just plain bad.

The story is about a lovable conniver played by Frank Morgan--and this is pretty much the role he played in almost every movie he made. However, it's a little bit different this time in that he's a performer on radio and not a typical con man. But, he lies constantly and has a string of ex-wives chasing him--once again, typical Morgan story elements. And, as usual, despite his being disreputable and a horrible father, his kids rally inexplicably to his defense. All this is so formulaic and a retread of so many Morgan movies that I found myself getting bored with the plot.

To make it worse, since this was about producing a radio show, several god-awful acts were included in the movie--as well as one excellent one. The old racist song "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" (singing about the "good old days" of slavery) was performed twice when the film began--once masterfully by a Black bellhop and once horribly by a zombie-like woman who was awfully scary to behold as she sang! Later, it turned out that one of Morgan's daughters could apparently sing, and she sang a couple numbers in the highest pitch operatic style. Technically, I guess it was pretty good, but I hated it and it hurt my ears. I could almost swear I could hear the neighbor's dogs barking as she sang! Now as for Morgan's radio show goes, the initial gimmick was pretty funny, though as it was repeated throughout the movie it just seemed awfully silly. Apparently Morgan's character had a genius for mimicry, as he could perform ALL the voices in a radio drama alone--men, women and children. To do this, the film makers actually dubbed these voices as Morgan's lips moved. Later, it turned out he could reproduce ANY Hollywood star's voice, and he pretended to be Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamarr, Mickey Rooney and Wallace Beery. So all these actors get to make a cameo in the film--or at least their voices did.

So overall, the movie was very predictable, formulaic, silly but still somehow watchable. This is NOT a film I'd recommend you rush to see, but there are certainly worse films out there.

Oh, and by the way, there is a strange mistake in the film due to poor editing. At one point late in the film, Billie Burke says to Morgan "you're a vulture" and then Morgan responds. Then, one of Morgan's other ex-wives begins talking and yet no words come out of her mouth due to an editing mistake. I am really surprised no one caught this, as it was strange to see a woman speak an entire line and yet you can't hear a thing!

Frantic unfunny comedy about how Frank Morgan panicked the nation on radio -- a gloss on Orson Welles' broadcast of WAR OF THE WORLDS -- and the lives, loves and generally unfunny situations surrounding his newfound success. Frank Morgan doubles sixteen times a second and an impossibly young Dan Dailey plays the juvenile lead. Give it a miss.

Veteran film actor Frank Morgan was a generally beloved comical character actor in most of the silent era and the first 2 decades of talkies. Probably, he mostly played supporting roles, as in the 1940 block-buster "Boom Town". But the previous year, of course, he played the title character in the immortal "The Wizard of Oz". Here, again, in 1940, he gets to ham it up, as the star, in this programmer-length musical variety comedy.

As the father of a clan of children, he's trying to restart his entertainment career by switching to radio. In his first performance, he mimics Orson Welles's infamous 1938 radio broadcast, in which he is narrating the invasion of earth by Martians. This scares the nation, thus he is fired. But, he doesn't give up. Next, he organizes a program supposedly featuring various top movie stars, as well as some of his children. He cons well-recognized character actor Donald Meek into believing that these stars will actually show up. Instead, he supposedly mimics a few phrases by each.

Tall, handsome, personable, young Dan Dailey is the second male lead, in a largely romance role. In a year or 2, he would join the armed services, and not restart his film career until 1947, as costar with Betty Grable, in one of her most popular musicals, utilizing his vaudevillian talents in singing, dancing and comedy. He would be featured in more musicals to come, a few with Betty, who regarded him as her favorite leading man during that period. Here, others get to sing.

Zombie-faced and voiced Virginia O'Brien gets her start in films with 2 songs. Somehow, this novelty managed to keep her in films, at MGM, for some years. But, in most cases, including this one, I can't stand her! .........Then, there's mid-teen Leni Lynn, who sings several times, like she's trying to replace former MGM starlet Deanna Durbin's operatic voice, Deanna having since become a star at Universal. Alas, Leni was not destined to repeat Deanna's success..............But, surely, the most impressive young singing talent was African American Charles Holland: 'The Singing Bellhop', made to perform in his 'monkey suit', befitting an African American of the times. I couldn't believe that his very Caruso-like operatic singing wasn't dubbed by some famous Italian opera singer! I didn't see any indication that he was dubbed. Like many talented African American performers, he soon relocated in Europe, which was less racially biased, and became a success..............The distinctive-looking mid-teen Larry Nunn plays one of Morgan's kids. You may remember him from "Strike up the Band" or "Men of Boy's Town". His movie career would last only a couple of years.

Overall, not the greatest entertainment you will ever see or hear, but a reasonably pleasant way to pass the time, if you like Frank Morgan, and I imagine there are some who don't. You will probably have to wait for this to come around on TCM.

Virginia Obrien sure steals the opening scenes as she cracks jokes between lines of her own singing performance, staying completely deadpan all the while. We get a glimpse of Frank Morgan, who is trying to audition at a radio station, but doesn't get in. Aside from some good actual singing performances, there's just so much going on here, we need a score card to keep track of it all; There's the comedy bit with lead Frank Merriweather (Frank Morgan) and his butler over what they will call the butler, but it falls flat. Then there is the ex-wives routine with all the wives and grown up children, which is just confusing. Morgan's stammering, blustering, wisecracking, muttering character is just an hour and a half of vaudeville jokes, which is quite fun to watch, but doesn't really help the plot along. He actually does the "that was no lady, that was my wife!" bit during a bit with his family; See 15 year old Larry Nunn, and 15 year old Leni Lynn do a couple song and dance numbers with Morgan as he tries to get his children into show business. At the same time, Merriweather gets fired for scaring the public with a radio show that mimics one that had just happened in real life a few years prior. He spends the rest of the movie trying to get his job back at the radio station. Keep an eye out for Leo Gorcey (one of the Bowery Boys) and Donald Meeks (from the W.C. fields movies) Morgan does a zillion imitations, but about half of them are the actual actors voices... it would have been funnier to have Morgan just try to imitate them, instead of using the actual actors voices. When Morgan starts spouting Claudette Colbert from "It happened one night", it's pretty obvious that it couldn't be Morgan doing ALL the voices. Billie Burke (Glenda, the good witch) is one of the ex-wives, in her usual flitting about way. A neat trick of doubling-up on the songs here -- at the beginning of the film, and again near the end, Virginia O'Brien does stepped-up jazz versions of songs that had just been sung by someone else. Also a couple of excellent singing performances by Charles Holland, who always appears in his bellhop uniform. Have not been able to find out anything about his professional career, but what a set of lungs! It appears this film was made into a weekly TV show by NBC in the 1960s. Fun to watch Morgan, and the others do their showbiz bits, but as others have pointed out, plot line is pretty weak.

This is a nice little musical that's just a lot of fun. Frank Morgan is outstanding as usual. The supporting cast, including Billie Burke, Sara Haydin,and Virginia Gray are all fine. Compared to today's movies with all the violence and cynicism, movies like Hullabaloo are wonderful escape mechanisms.