boblipton

Two museum professors are sent to Tibet to bring back an abominable schmoe man.

It's a Madcap Modern from Famous Studios. While there are a couple of decent jokes in this cartoon, it hardly seems like enough to keep this going for more than six minutes. The artwork is the cheap and ugly stuff that the dying theatrical cartoon used in the 1960s, and the voice work, done by the usual skilled professionals, seems to be trying to make it funny despite nothing funny to say, and fails.

Gaston is there to, he thinks, paint a portrait of the young boy. The parents are on the way to a costume party, and think they have a baby sitter coming, but don't. Instead, they mistake Gaston for the baby sitter, and he thinks the husband, dressed in a child's sailor suit for the party, is his subject.

Hilarity does not ensue. Part of the problem is that this turns into a shaggy dog story, with a typically weak punchline. Another is the loud, grouchy, and obnoxious voice work. A third is the post U. P. A. Visuals, ugly and gaudy.

This is another of those odd musicals for which the producers paid good money for a Broadway property, then threw out large swaths, including a Rodgers & Hart score. That probably turned out for the best. The movie score, largely written by Jimmy McHugh and Harold Adamson includes three Sinatra hits and "Minuet in Boogie." Meanwhile the stage version got awful notices, even though everyone loved the performing seal. The seal is missing from the movie version, unless its place is taken by Sinatra, who plays a character called Frank Sinatra.

The plot? Yes, it's got a plot. Leon Erroll is the last of an old New York family who is now broke. The bank is foreclosing on his house, so he colludes with his servants to pass off scullery mid Michele Morgan as his daughter, marry her to someone in the chips, and live happily ever after. They settle on Victor Borge, who does not play the piano, which must have been a relief to him; those duties are left to chauffeur Dooley Wilson. However, she really loves butler Jack Haley.

Now that you know the plot, are you any happier? The songs are pretty good, even if Sinatra seems to sing "This is a Lovely Way to Spend an Evening" forty-seven times. I can't say I like anything except the music. The casting seems odd, the jokes have aged poorly, but somehow everything works. Perhaps it was because of when it was made, a time when the movie musical was entering its peak, at a moment when movie audiences needed some nonsensical escapism.