Billy Rose's Casa Mañana Revue

Billy Rose was a showman famous for putting his name on the titles of his shows and films as well as producing big stage extravaganzas similar to those of Flo Ziegfeld. This one is set at a huge revolving theater built in Texas for their centennial.

Supposedly what you see is a lot of the backstage theatrics that go into making a hit show. In this case, the husband-wife dance duo of Dixon and Mason are arguing and she stomps off...refusing to do the show. So, Billy Rose himself manipulates her until she returns for a new musical extravaganza...and, amazingly enough, she never rehearsed the number AND only had five minutes to get ready and the performance is flawless...even though it ALSO includes their young niece!

If any of this sounds interesting or worth watching, you are extremely wrong. Tedious and boring are two words that come to mind as you watch these boring acts and the behind the scenes stuff all seems fake and unappealing. Overall, one of the least interesting MGM shorts I have ever seen.

Elaborate and overproduced, this early George Sidney musical short suffers a bit from the sort of overproduction that Billy Rose's shows were infamous for -- take a look at FUNNY LADY -- that played very well in the period, although the profits for the producer might be pretty iffy. There are a couple of plots shoehorned into the spaces between the numbers, and some excellent care is given to camera placement. But the huge sets and overly elaborate costumes dominate the short.

Of course, it's interesting to see what the now legendary Billy Rose looked and acted like, and you can have some fun looking at Peggy Ryan as a real teenager. A few years later she would move to Universal and be teamed with Donald O'conner as teenaged lovers for far too long, but on the whole this is an adequate, but not terribly interesting musical short.