Follie di New York

Darryl Zanuck loved doing these period musicals because the music of the time had by now passed into the public domain. For My Gal Sal, Zanuck didn't have any contemporary composers write anything original for the score on this one. Those original songs are what win Academy Awards as he would prove the following year with You'll Never Know.

My Gal Sal which along with On The Banks Of The Wabash was the most popular song that Paul Dresser ever wrote serves also as the title of this musical biography of Dresser. Paul originally named Dreiser was the oldest of nine children and the youngest was famed novelist Theodore Dreiser and Dreiser wrote a short essay in tribute to his older brother which was the basis for this film. Young Theodore only appears as a child at the beginning of the film.

But the title role is fictional musical comedy star Sally Elliott who is played by Rita Hayworth. She's got publisher John Sutton panting after her, but she's got this love/hate thing going on with Victor Mature as Dresser. The plot for Sutton must have seemed familiar, it's the same one that 20th Century Fox used in A Yank In The RAF where Sutton was in the same position as in this film only with Tyrone Power and Betty Grable.

If this were being made today we would get the real story which was that Paul Dresser was a man of large frame and large appetites. The 'Sal" he wrote this song for was in real life a bordello madame of a certain house that he favored and occasionally took aspiring novelist Theodore in for a quickie. He was also a man close to 300 pounds and the guy who could have played him for real at the time was on the 20th Century lot and that was Laird Cregar.

But Mature and Hayworth were just coming into their own and Zanuck got full use of them. Mature was his studio's property, but Rita was on loan from Columbia where Harry Cohn was starting to realize what a great find Hayworth was. Zanuck was developing his star with three films, this one, Blood And Sand and Tales Of Manhattan. They both looked real good and sang real good with dubbed voices.

A lot of period music, costuming, and sets is what My Gal Sal gets its best marks for. In fact the film won an Oscar for Best Art&Set Design. Rita looked and danced divinely even using someone else's voice as she always did.

It's not the best film of this type that Fox ever did, but if your taste does run into period musicals than you can't go wrong with My Gal Sal.

For a movie that had to pass the Production Code, My Gal Sal has some pretty racy lines that passed through the censors. Victor Mature obviously has a physical relationship with Carole Landis while working in a travelling vaudeville show, and when he starts coming onto Rita Hayworth when he moves up in the world, he's very interested in in seeing her bedroom. He keeps pushing until she finally relents, and she's next seen in a disheveled appearance running late to her next performance.

The costumes in this movie are gorgeous, so if you like the time period of the 1890s, you'll love watching all the beautiful outfits parade across the screen. The songs are source music from the protagonist's collection, but if you aren't familiar with Paul Dresser's work, there will be new schmaltzy tunes for you to listen to. The love story, honestly, isn't that great. Victor's character is written to be selfishly ambitious with a big temper. Rita is rude, snobby, and also has a huge temper. You can't even imagine the depths of their fights, and it makes the audience wish they'd end up with calmer people who might soften their rough edges. Carole was a sweet, caring girl, and John Sutton is steady, stable, and puts up with way too much from Rita.

But hey, you can't have everything. If you like Rita, you can check out this early musical. It's pure escapism that fits right in with the backstage musicals of the WWII era.

I think I heard of Paul Dresser and wanted to hear his music. Only song I can say I knew - faintly- was the Wabash song, which turns out to be the Indiana State song. So, yeah, I didn't know much about this story. It was interesting to see the 1890s period sets. Mostly I watched this to see Rita Hayworth. Never saw anything of hers (but I probably did). She is actually a good actress and dances well. Victor Mature seemed to be an odd pick for the role of Paul. But their chemistry on screen was apparent.

It's interesting that Paul started out singing at carnivals before hitting the big time on Broadway. I suppose that's similar to singers/songwriters who toiled away in bars before getting discovered.

Anyway, the movie was comfortable, pleasant, relaxing to watch and gave me a glimpse into a seemingly simpler happy world, even if it's idealistically presented. Thank you TCM for keeping these flicks on the air.

RITA HAYWORTH and VICTOR MATURE make a pleasant co-starring team, although it's hate at first sight, proof positive that true love never does run smooth...at least not in these sort of backstage musicals where the paper-thin plot depends upon the boy-loses-girl-until-final-reel contrivances.

Rita has a temper to match her red hair and when she tears up all of Mature's clothes, he does the same to her. And so it goes. They fuss and feud all over the screen until the last moment--but it's all done with such style and charm that you can't resist it.

Alice Faye was supposed to do Rita's role but she was expecting a baby so Rita signed on. As usual, someone else dubs her singing but her dancing is a sheer delight and the technicolor costumes are showcased in all of the musical numbers.

Given short shrift in the cast is CAROLE LANDIS, with almost nothing to do after a bright start, and handsome JOHN SUTTON has a thankless role as Rita's would be suitor. Too bad Fox could never find a worthy starring role for him.

Fun to watch (if you like musicals) and easy to take.

"My Gal Sal" is not an unpleasant musical, but it gets a more lavish treatment than it deserves. It's a typically fictionalized musical biopic, with Victor Mature playing Paul Dresser, a popular Midwestern songwriter of the "Gay 90s." (For younger readers, that's what the 1890s were called, though the description had to do with high spirits, not sexuality.) Rita Hayworth is Dresser's love interest and the title character. Several of the songs in the movie were not even the work of Dresser, though the title song is. As the movie notes at the beginning, Dresser, born Dreiser, was the older brother of famed novelist Theodore Dreiser, author of that grim classic "An American Tragedy." The screenplay is supposedly based on Dreiser's reflective essay "My Brother Paul." But if it were, this film would be a bit of a drag: Paul Dresser's fame was fairly brief and he died young, and Theodore Dreiser never wrote anything light. Hollywood was wise enough to make up some harmless stuff, pick a beautiful leading lady and play it all for fun.