Quattro ragazze all'abbordaggio

Designed partially as a showcase for RKO owner Howard Hughes girlfriend, Janet Leigh. Hughes could afford to import quite a lot of first rate talent in the effort, mostly from best in the musical business MGM. Current or former MGM talent included Leigh, Ann Miller, Gloria DeHaven, and Tony Martin, along with musical number director Busby Berkeley. Leigh proved herself competent as a singer and dancer, and is certainly pleasant in personality and a pleasure to look at.

In the musical numbers featuring the four "girls", Gloria DeHaven is the standout (sorry Ann Miller fans). DeHaven sings superbly, handles the dancing with aplomb, has just the right mix of charisma, humor, sincerity, and takes a back seat to no one in the beauty department.

I thought the musical numbers well staged and mostly very pleasant (exception the very banal Pellican Falls school song). The comedy of Smith and Dale, I could live without, if you'll excuse the expression. And Eddie Bracken is too frenetic and broad in his comedy for my taste.

Though none of the songs became a standard, a couple are excellent; I especially enjoyed "The Worry Bird", and "The Closer You Are" has a gorgeous melody.

All in all, the film is the equal of many of the lower budget MGM musicals, and that ain't bad at all.

Two Tickets to Broadway was to be Howard Hughes's answer to MGM type musicals and in fact he engaged the two leads from MGM, Tony Martin and Janet Leigh. The usual criticism was voiced with Martin being 15 years older than Leigh, but in this case it works because part of the plot is fresh faced Ms. Leigh avoiding being taken in by older Broadway sharpies.

No memorable songs were written by composers Jule Styne and Leo Robin for this film and that's a pity because if a hit had come out of it, the film would be better remembered. Martin, I'm sure realized no hits were coming out of this and he probably had two of his own songs put in there. He had hit records around this time of the Prologue from Pagliacci and There's No Tomorrow (O Sole Mio). He performs them well.

I would love to know if Janet Leigh was dubbed and by who. I don't believe she ever sang in any other film. For that reason I suspect a dubbing if for no other reason that she wouldn't want to be going up against a singer with as powerful a voice as Tony Martin.

Ironic that two of the players in this Ann Miller and Janet Leigh died this year. Nobody had to worry about dubbing Ann Miller in any department. She performs her big number, Let the Worry Bird Worry for You in classic style.

Bob Crosby who by that time was known as the afternoon Crosby because his radio and later TV show came on in the afternoon unlike his legendary brother. Being the Bing Crosby fan that I am, I have a soft spot in my heart for his Let's Make Comparison where he's comparing himself to brother Bing. Bob led a pretty good jazz band at that time and had a modest career in B films.

Eddie Bracken who was so good in his Paramount films was cloying and annoying in this one. His machinations trying to get his clients on the Bob Crosby show were downright stupid here and not terribly funny.

The ending though was an unintentional hoot. Janet Leigh comes from Pelican Falls, Vermont and early in the film she's given a send off by the high school band performing their alma mater song. I thought the ending with the high school band, interrupting Bob Crosby's broadcast to reprise their high school song was ridiculous. Was that Howard Hughes's idea? Well he didn't do as much damage here as he did on The Outlaw.

The film had a lot of potential and it could have been done better even at RKO, but I suspect Howard Hughes meddled a bit too much here.

I hated this film when I first saw it, perhaps thanks to a truly embarrassing performance from Tony Martin (a good singer but not the world's greatest actor).

Janet Leigh, Gloria de Haven, and Ann Miller want to make it big in show-business, and come through their vaudeville roots to stage a revue that they hope will be taken up by the Bob Crosby Show. There's some pretty good musical numbers along the way but the film creaks and drags badly in some sections (although the girls are consistently good). Crosby has a number all about 'brother Bing' which is fun. And there's a good support role from Eddie Bracken.

On subsequent viewings I have warmed a bit more to 'Two Tickets to Broadway'. It isn't all bad and there are certainly musicals out there which are worse. But I still can't watch Tony Martin in a number in Indian dress without cringing ...

A run-of-the-mill musical with Tony Martin and Janet Leigh in the lead roles. Eddie Bracken provides semi-comic relief. You can see the hand of producer Howard Hughes in this one, with its profusion of showgirls and, for 1951, a heaping helping of skin(albeit, G-rated by today's standards).

Old-fashioned without being embarrassing, "Broadway" features Janet Leigh as a sparkling small town lass who moves to the Big Apple to work in theater, falling in league with other young hopefuls and staging their own revue. Not too far-fetched(Carol Burnett did the same thing in real-life)and Janet bounces happily throughout. Not really remarkable, but a nice time-filler. Bob Crosby pokes fun at older brother Bing in the film's most self-conscious moment. **1/2 from ****