A Luva Perdida

Washington Melodrama has a bit of everything in it, murder, infidelity, politics, the war, and a Busby Berkeley style musical number in a nightclub with a swimming pool. All that in a film from the B picture unit with MGM's B contract players.

At one time Frank Morgan played more serious type roles as he does here primarily. But after he scored such a success in The Affairs Of Cellini getting an Oscar nomination playing the oafish, addle-pated Duke of Florence and following that up with the French territorial Governor in Naughty Marietta, the movie-going public saw him rarely do anything else. Here he's the lead as a millionaire industrialist who is in the nation's capital lobbying for a bill to bring relief to the starving in war torn Europe.

Taken to a nightclub by a rakish US Senator friend Thurston Hall, he gets an arranged meeting with dancer Anne Gwynne and they begin an innocent flirtation that has the potential to get serious with Morgan's wife and daughter away. Then Gwynne gets herself murdered and Morgan is involved.

His daughter Ann Rutherford stands by him, but her boyfriend Kent Taylor is a newspaper columnist and his instincts takeover. Between the two of them sometimes working at cross purposes it's a job to clear Morgan and find the real culprit. We know who it is, but they don't. And looming in the background is Morgan's pet project the relief bill which is in danger of being torpedoed in the scandal.

Lee Bowman plays Taylor's sidekick reporter, Douglass Dumbrille for once is not a villain playing the District Attorney. And as a song and dance couple at the nightclub are Dan Dailey and Virginia Grey. This film shows all of Dailey's talents as dancer and actor.

Most of all this film belongs to Morgan showing him capable of doing more than being an oaf. I'm sure he was grateful for the chance.

Calvin Claymore (Frank Morgan) is a tycoon trying to pass a humanitarian bill for Nazi occupied Europe. He is opposed for helping the enemy. He gets drawn to a nightclub and becomes attached to showgirl Mary Morgan. Their encounter was set up by a blackmailer. When she turns up murdered, the blackmailer frames him for it.

Morgan's politics is naive at best and wrong at worst. The audience would know it soon enough. His political position actually bugs me a lot and the other side isn't that helpful either. They are debating about the effects without trying to fix the root cause. In the end, that part isn't necessary to the blackmail. He would still be after his money with or without the issue. As for Calvin, he is still the cause of his own problem no matter how much of a gentleman he tries to be. He willingly gets hooked. He has no one to blame but himself. Well, it's in the title. It's all melodrama.

This has some cheery trappings but it's a brutal little movie. Dan Dailey could be a mean villain. He certainly is here.

Frank Morgan is framed, but the real noir heroes -- heroines --are the two pretty dancing girls.

This movie has a lot of bite, despite its having been directed by a workaday director and its starring the generally affable -- always, always likeable Morgan

Frank Morgan gets mixed up in a "Washington Melodrama" in this 1941 film also starring Dan Dailey, Kent Taylor, and Ann Rutherford.

Morgan plays steel tycoon Calvin Claymore, who is preparing to go before Congress to champion his relief organization, which wants the U.S. to help the children who are starving overseas as a result of World War II. Since this film was released in 1941, we hadn't yet entered the war. He's got some opposition, including his daughter's fiancé, newspaper editor Hal (Kent Taylor). Calvin's family, daughter Laurie (Ann Rutherford) and wife (Fay Holden) are away for the summer, and he's terribly lonely.

He and a friend go to a nightclub, where he meets a showgirl, Mary (Anne Gwynne) whom he takes sightseeing and escorts around town. I think that's all there was to it - you know these old films, it's sometimes pretty obscure as to what's going on.

Anyway, when his family returns, Mary understands that he won't be seeing her. She then reveals something he's known all along: the whole meeting was a set-up by an entertainer at the club, Whit (Dan Dailey) but though she went out with Calvin, she didn't soak him for money as planned. After Calvin leaves, Mary finds an envelope from him with a letter and a bunch of money. She starts to run after him but is stopped by Whit. He wants the money; she wants to return it. The two fight and she is killed. This is going to cause some problems for poor Calvin.

When all is revealed, Laurie goes to work trying to find out the identity of the killer with the help of a reporter (Lee Bowman).

Solid movie, with a delightful performance by Ann Rutherford, who dons a French accent for part of the film, and an excellent one by Frank Morgan, in a different kind of role for him. Actors in those days were typecast by their studios and it's difficult to see them in other roles, and when you do, it's often a revelation. Morgan here shows he can hold down a lead and do serious roles - something he did early in his career before getting noticed in his usual type of part.

Lee Bowman is terrific as reporter Ronnie Colton - funny, smooth, and charming. A leading man type with the soul of a character actor - good combo.

Entertaining.

Despite actor Morgan's subtly effective performance, it's a concocted screenplay, part murder, part politics, part floorshow, and part romance. Then too, the focus shifts midway from Morgan to daughter Rutherford, further dispersing plot progression. No whodunit here since we see Dailey smack the doomed girl into a fatal tumble. For song and dance man Dailey, it's quite a career departure that takes some getting used to.

Seems wealthy Morgan's trying to get a Congressional bill passed to help those Europeans now under Nazi conquest (1941). In this, he's opposed by newspaper editor Taylor who thinks Nazis will simply seize the assistance for their own. Thus the subtext somewhat mirrors the bigger issue between isolationists (Taylor) and interventionists (Morgan) of the time. Anyhow, Morgan gets innocently involved with a showgirl who's murdered by Dailey. Trouble is Morgan's left incriminating evidence in murdered girl's room. So how will he clear himself, and maybe more importantly not compromise his Congressional bill.

That indoor pool that suddenly opens up from the nightclub floor is a grabber. But then so are the swimsuit chorines that dive in. Seems like that queen of aquanauts, Esther Williams, should be there, somewhere. Then too, the overhead geometry the pool girls perform made me think Busby Berkeley lurking above with a camera. In fact, those floorshow routines may be the movie's best part.

On the whole, the film's well acted and well mounted for a B-production, but then it is MGM. However, the screenplay could use some serious shaping and trimming to achieve needed impact. As is, it's 80-minutes of occasional parts, but a ho-hum whole.