Girl Crazy

It is not easy to turn GIRL CRAZY into a disaster, given the Gershwin score and a somewhat serviceable plot - but the creators of this version have succeeded in doing just that. There were six writers given screen credit for this scenario: perhaps that was the problem, or maybe the screenplay was even worse until that number was reached.

The gags (can I call them that if they are not funny?) are so forced, so weak, so juvenile as to make an audience squirm. Wheeler and Woolsey were never worse; at their best (it says here) they were second-raters, with a very limited assortment of poses, gestures, and facial expressions. No one in this cast offers demonstrable talent. An amateur cast (and director) could have done more with the material (I've seen it happen). And let us not overlook totally mindless rendering of "I Got Rhythm" in the film's big production number.

Why did you tell me to watch this?

I saw this early RKO musical-comedy only for the music. The tagline, "Sensational Gershwin Songs", intrigued me so I wanted to see it. Though it has two Gershwin songs, including the memorable "I Got Rhythm", "Girl Crazy" is less a full-fledged musical than an endearingly riotous comedy, one of the funniest I have seen. IT is so funny, it hurts! The last time I laughed so hard in a movie was a Laurel & Hardy Two-Reeler called "Two Tars"(1928).

It has one hilarious gag after another. I wouldn't spoil the fun, but the "hypnotism" scene involving Woolsey & Wheeler and the buffoonish cowboy is priceless.

If you like Marx Bros, you will definitely like "Girl Crazy".

Mr. Oliver summed up "Girl Crazy" very well. I found a collecter's copy of this, mostly to catch Mitzi Green's performance. Mitzi, born in 1920, worked in fifteen films before she was thirteen. Mitzi, at least in this film, was completely different than anything before or after her. Not the sweet, loving little girl... not Mitzi. Here she's a 12 year old flapper, with just the right amount of brattyness to be sweet, smarter than anyone else, and with a talent for "imitations" of the popular singers of the epoch. She had only one short tap dance number that didn't really show her talent. And I'll bet her colleagues loved working with her... for once a child actress who isn't a scene stealer!

Much to my surprise, I found this practically forgotten film has a score and lyrics by the Gershwin brothers, and one of the funniest casts ever, none of whom I'd ever heard of. I generally avoid comedies like the plague, mostly because the modern ones don't seem to be very funny, but this comedy is fast, non-stop, and really funny, right down to the uncredited walk-ons. The scenes & jokes are clever, instead of stupid.... multi-faceted jokes and intelligent slapstick that never lags. The speed and cleverness of it reminds me of the first few minutes of "Romancing the Stone".

Only a few of Mitzi's films are available on video in the classics collectors' market. Her screen time is limited to about 15-20 minutes but, as always, she's worth watching and remembering. The combination of Wheeler & Woolsey, the Gershwin bros. and Mitzi Green make this a film well worth seeing.

As this is one of the projects that young David Selznick did as a producer for Radio pictures before moving on to MGM and his own production company, it's shocking to think that this man (somehow universally celebrated for his taste) could have taken the great 1930 Broadway musical featuring Ethel Merman and Ginger Rogers and reduced it to a Wheeler & Woolsey slapstick comedy; in the process, Selznick eliminated most of its great Gershwin songs among them "Bidin' My Time" and "Embraceable You" and treated the other immortal tunes like "But Not For Me" as novelty numbers. An appalling example of how old Hollywood didn't recognize genius when it stared it in the face.

Easy. First you remove most of the songs, and then you give one of the most popular comedy teams of the day nothing to work with. All downhill from there. I really don't understand why the producers removed songs and inserted a couple of tuneless ones in their place. The new ones sounded like Gershwin rejects they had stashed in a trunk somewhere. "I Got Rhythm" could have been a show-stopper but it took place in a night club, in one of the most bizarre, surreal musical numbers ever committed to film. I think jaw-dropping is an apt term.

In the early 30's, Wheeler and Woolsey were one of the best comedy teams extant. They had made "Hook,Line and Sinker", and "Half Shot At Sunrise", both in 1930. Now, those were funny pictures with good, funny material. "Girl Crazy" was reissued with "Peach-O-Reno" by Warner Archives collection, and there is hardly an unforced laugh in either one. Dreadfully unfunny movies.

I could go on and on but why bother. My rating is more a reflection of disappointment than anything else. But The Gershwins and Wheeler and Woolsey deserved better.