Painting the Clouds with Sunshine

This color remake of the landmark 'Gold Diggers' series of musicals of the 1930s is a pretty limp effort, despite individual bits that are excellent. 'Cuddles' Sakall is present for his usual Bavarian doubletalk, partnered, for some reason, with Wallace Ford playing a knife-throwing dessert rat. Dennis Morgan, tailing off in his Warners' career, plays the other guy. Basically this is a typical Warners musical of the era: a lightweight, retread plot and songs lifted from the catalogue. All it misses is Doris Day and she turned down the script.

The real point of this movie is the dance numbers, featuring lead Gene Nelson with choreography by Warners' stalwart dance director Leroy Prinz. Nelson never really became a star, but he was as fine a dancer as any, averaging much more athletic and balletic than headliners Astaire and Kelly; his signature step was a leap onto a table from the floor. Prinz directs him perfectly with monochromatically colored lights that allow him to act and move without words. 'Birth of the Blues' is the real highlight of the film.

Alas, aside from those moments, it's pretty much of a rote production. See it once for the dance numbers and be done.

Lounge singer Vince Nichols (Dennis Morgan) is trying to quit gambling for girlfriend Abby (Lucille Norman). Abby, Carol (Virginia Mayo), and June (Virginia Gibson) are The Dillon Sisters. The men disappoint the ladies. Carol wants a rich man and convinces her sisters on a hunting trip to Vegas. Ted Lansing (Gene Nelson) follows the girls to dance with them. The girls' uncle Felix Hoff (S. Z. Sakall) had expanded from a motel to his new casino, but it is in trouble.

I don't really like gold-digging stories. They are often the antithesis of romance. The girls are literally looking for something other than love. At least, this one sets it up well. The girls are tired of love's disappointments. This is not necessarily the type of story or music that I like. It is still interesting enough since I care about the matchups.

Painting The Clouds With Sunshine casts Virginia Mayo, Lucille Norman, and Virginia Gibson as a singing trio who disappointed in love go west to Las Vegas. That city was just starting to develop as the sin city capital of America although it was a decade or so until the Rat Pack really put it on the map. The clubs in Las Vegas, Reno, and other areas in the state were just starting to attract show business acts like you see the women portray here. Singer Dennis Morgan with a bad gambling addiction is also there and so is Gene Nelson who is a hoofer who has a terrible secret, he's a Back Bay Boston millionaire.

Terrible at least in the eyes of his cousin Tom Conway who wants to save him and the family reputation from Nelson's chosen career. Of course he falls for one of the women as well.

I saw elements here from films like Moon Over Miami and Goldiggers Of 1933 and even Donovan's Reef in Painting The Clouds With Sunshine. The musical numbers were nice, but nothing terribly new. The score was taken from a variety of composers, I'm sure the Brothers Warner owned the rights to them. The film is a remake of the first Goldigger films both of which may be lost.

Everybody here has done better work.

Jack Warner handed this script to Doris Day, but she begged out. It was too much like the other films she had made at Warners (she made "Lullaby of Broadway" that same year and "Tea For Two" right before that). Virgina Mayo, who was free, loved doing musicals, so she stepped in and Dennis Morgan's name went up one step. Doris, by this time was extremely popular, so she would have gotten billing over Morgan.

This was colorful (I saw it once) and Mayo looked incredible, as usual.

Day, after "Calamity Jane" got "picky" about parts. She also turned down "The Helen Morgan Story" with Paul Newman, "The Jazz Singer" with Danny Thomas and WB had planned "Miss America" for Doris and Virginia, a musical.

Warner Brothers' 1950s recycling of their old films and their old songs gave us this remake of Gold Diggers of 1933 (itself a remake of the lost Gold Diggers of Broadway).

Songs which appear within 'Painting the Clouds ...' include Tip Toe Through The Tulips, With a Song in My Heart, You're My Everything, and We're in the Money. About the best routines are those which accompany The Mambo Man, and The Birth of the Blues.

In the cast are Virginia Mayo, Lucille Norman, and Virginia Gibson, as a girl trio of singers and dancers looking for rich men with no ties and lots of spare cash. Dennis Morgan is a slightly dull singer, Gene Nelson a dancer with a secret, and Tom Conway is Nelson's well-to-do uncle (not older brother as in Gold Diggers of 1933, although Conway looks very like Warren William did in the earlier film). An unnecessary subplot gives the irritating Cuddles Sakall something to do.

A likeable musical which gives us nothing new but helps to pass the time.