April Showers

Came across movie by chance on Turner Classics. Joe Tyme takes to drink. Man loses wife, man, etc. etc. etc. Could have been a better story if more focus on Joe Tyme and his inability to cope with his problems. However, entertaining, light musical is really the genre of this picture despite the dark side.

The 1957 film 'The Buster Keaton Story' was ostensibly a biopic of silent-film comedian Keaton, but went far out of its way to tell Keaton's life story inaccurately ... and came up with a fiction that wasn't even very entertaining. A vastly better film, 'The Comic' (1969), depicted the life and career of an allegedly fictional silent-film comedian but actually gave a largely accurate account of Keaton's adult life and career. The 1948 Warner Bros musical 'April Showers', conversely, would seem to have been inspired by Buster Keaton's adolescent years as a star performer in vaudeville. As Keaton's major work in the Hollywood studio system was done for MGM, I'm intrigued that someone at Warner Brothers knew enough about Keaton's early life to create this film ... especially in 1948, when Keaton's career was at a low ebb.

The official stars of this film are Jack Carson (excellent!) and Ann Sothern as married vaudevillains Joe and June Tyme. (Keaton's vaudevillain parents were named Joe and Myra.) The act isn't doing well, and the Tymes can barely afford to pay the tuition for their son Buster who's in military school. Eventually, Buster Tyme is reunited with his parents in a theatrical boarding-house. Young Buster is played by Robert Ellis, a teenaged actor previously unknown to me. What a dynamic talent! (Why didn't this movie make Ellis a star?) In the boarding-house, Buster goes into a rousing rendition of 'Are You from Dixie?'. He sings, he dances, he turns cartwheels. Ellis gives a good acting performance as well; he shows real chemistry in his scenes with Carson, as they affectionately address each other as 'Big Tyme' and 'Small Tyme'.

Naturally, Joe and June put Buster into their small-time vaude act ... and they swiftly become a big-time hit. (In real life, Buster Keaton was part of his parents' stage act almost from birth ... and he quickly became the act's star.) But just when times are changing for the Tymes, along come a bunch of do-gooders who want to keep children off the stage. There's an implausible and unfunny scene here in which Buster tries to defuse the do-gooders by pretending to be a midget, smoking a cigar and talking in a deep voice. It doesn't help that the 'midget' voice is badly post-dubbed, and is clearly supplied by Mel Blanc doing his usual Barney Rubble turn. At the edge of these proceedings, a real midget (actor Billy Curtis) only emphasises the tastelessness of this scene.

With Buster out of the act, Joe and June are back in the small time again. Joe's drinking starts to jeopardise the act and the family (as was the case with Joe Keaton's alcoholism). June Tyme encounters suave stranger Billy Shay (Robert Alda, in an unsympathetic role), who seems to have designs on June. The ending is predictable and unconvincing.

Modern audiences might have trouble believing this film's central plot device: namely, that a talented and eager performer would be kept off the stage merely because he's not an adult. Actually, 'April Showers' gets this right. In America's vaudeville era, there was a powerful organisation called the Gerry Society, dedicated to preventing children from performing before age 16. At one point, Buster Keaton's parents actually considered passing him off as a midget to escape the Gerries' scrutiny. The Gerry Society's power extended beyond vaudeville: in the 1940 Broadway musical 'Panama Hattie', Ethel Merman was supposed to sing and dance a duet with child performer Joan Carroll, but the Gerries prevented Carroll from singing or dancing ... so she had to march in tempo with the music while chanting the lyric.

'April Showers' is weakly directed by James V Kern, a former musical comedian (one of the Yacht Club Boys) who lacks a sure touch. This movie should have been helmed by Warners contract director David Butler, who is woefully underrated. I'll rate 'April Showers' just 5 points out of 10, despite Robert Ellis's dynamic performance.

I am an inveterate movie fan and am astonished that this little gem of a flick managed to escape my attention. I only saw it today (10/26/03) for the first time. Although Warner's Forties period musicals ("Shine On, Harvest Moon," "Daughter of Rosie O'Grady," et alia) couldn't quite match those of 20th Century-Fox's, especially those of Grable and Faye, this was a a valiant effort and totally watchable. The 15-year-old Billy Ellis' portrayal of the 12-year-old Small Tyme was a stretch, but he was such winning presence and so talented that one can forgive the producers for not making the character closer to the actor's true age. Sothern was wonderful. Even Jack Carson, an actor whose screen personality can often be grating, performed winningly in a starring role. Robert Alda rounded out the cast in a not very sympathetic part. This film gets my thumbs up.

Jack Carson's performance of an alcoholic vaudevillian who gets a few bad breaks highlights April Showers. Roles like this made Carson's studio Warner Brothers and others start taking him seriously as an actor as opposed to a funny man who specialized in blowhards.

Carson and Ann Sothern are a vaudeville team during the first score of years in the 20th century. They're doing all right, but when they add their kid Robert Ellis to the act they start getting better bookings and even dream of the Palace in New York.

But that dream gets shattered when the blue noses start insisting on child labor laws being enforced. They no longer get the billings and Carson turns to drink. And another performer Robert Alda starts throwing his intentions Ann's way.

Including the title song the score is interpolated from a variety of sources of music from the period. Young Mr. Ellis proves to be quite the terpsichorean, no wonder he made the act for them.

Sothern lends good support and a good singing voice. But April Showers is really Jack Carson's picture.

The Happy Tymes are flopping as a vaudeville act until they add their 12-year old son to the musical act. But then the family runs into trouble causing a brief split.

As long as the three principals are on stage singing and shaking legs, the movie shines, and that's despite the rather dour b&w. The melodramatic side, however, is overdone for a musical, especially the acrobatic fistfight that reminded me of a cowboy matinée. Then there's that really ill-advised impersonation of a midget, that, as another reviewer aptly put it, comes across as tasteless. Still, little Bobby Ellis is remarkable as the third Happy Tyme. His utter fluidity as a teen dancer made me think I have a deficient gene. As the two adult Tymes, Sothern and Carson are real troupers, their chemistry unforced and lively. Carson was really an underrated actor, adept at drama, comedy, and musicals, as he shows here. I'm not sure, however, that Alan would be proud of dad Robert Alda's role here as a sneaky opportunist. And, of course, no musical of the period would be complete without that giggling marshmallow, Cuddles Sakall. No, the musical may not be anything special, but it does have its musical moments.

(In passing—I caught several episodes of the old TV series Meet Corliss Archer (1954-55) that also featured Bobby Ellis, then about age 20. There he shows what an excellent comedic actor he was, in addition to his musical talents. In short, he made that show work, short-lived though the series was. I suspect his short stature and average looks prevented his eventually reaching stardom. Nonetheless, he certainly had the talent.)