Hooray for Love

I found this movie in the 1970s and it usually played on or around Thanksgiving. I love Vintage movies like My Man Godfrey and this one. It is a totally underrated movie with one of the nicest casts around. Ann Southern, Gene Raymond, Bill Robinson and Jeni Le Gon. Guess you wonder who Ms. Le Gon was. She was a woman from Chicago that was not formally taught Tap but could mimic the moves until she got a role in the movie. She and Bill Robinson does a really crisp dance together. I saw this lovely woman on television about 10 years ago. She explained how she got the part.

What I really like is the chemistry of Gene and Ann and the little loose plot and the music. When Ann Southern Sings "I'm in Love All Over Again", it kind of pulls at my heart. Actually, I want to find this movie, I really do because for some reason it hasn't been back on television in about 15 years or better!

"Hooray for Love" is a film where most of it is very ordinary and familiar. But there's also a part that is pretty amazing and it is well worth watching the movie just to see these performances.

Douglas (Gene Raymond) is a struggling performer and Broadway wannabe. He tries working at the bottom for a local radio station and is soon fired. Shortly after, he meets a bombastic braggard. 'Commodore' Thatcher (Thurston Hall) claims to know people and can get Douglas in touch with some Broadway producers. In reality, Thatcher is a schemer and he mostly is interested in Douglas' money! The Commodore's daughter, Patricia (Ann Sothern) is a singer for this production....and early on there is a meet cute with Douglas and she can't stand him...at first. The rest of the film is about the ups and downs of putting on this show despite the odds.

If all this sounds familiar, well...it is! I have seen many films like it...including various musicals from Warner Brothers (such as "42nd Street") and the MGM Rooney-Garland films. But what makes it stand out are the cameos by Bill 'Bojangles' Robinson (one of the great tap dancers of his era), Jeni Le Gon (a great tap dancer and singer) and Fats Waller (one of the finest pianists...and quite the singer). Seeing the film just for their performances wouldn't be a bad thing! Overall, I give this one a 7....the story is okay and the dancing and music is tops.

Douglas Tyler (Gene Raymond) pursues Patricia Thatcher (Ann Sothern) as both a performing partner and girlfriend. She's not having any of it. He struggles to get anywhere in the business of show. The Commodore talks him into investing in a show after he realizes that it's Pat's father. The show rehersal goes horribly with the bad singing of Trixie Chummy (Pert Kelton). Doug mortgaged his family home and is in danger of losing it.

I love Pert Kelton's comedic section and Bill Robinson's dancing. I really like the first half of the story. I'm less in love with the second half. It's nevertheless pretty good.

A not very memorable score from Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields characterizes Hooray For Love. But Gene Raymond and Ann Sothern have every reason to believe the title. And where else will you get to see Bill 'Bojangles' Robinson dance and Fats Waller sing and play piano in the same number. That in itself is worth setting aside some time to see this.

But the real star of this film is Thurston Hall who usually plays stuffy establishment types in films and on television. But here he's a larcenous old conman who fleeces earnest young Gene Raymond who is trying to put on a show.

Raymond wants to put it on with Ann Sothern and Hall who sees that his daughter who is the only thing that really means anything to him makes some heavy sacrifices with society matron Georgia Caine. Over at Paramount WC Fields would have played this part to perfection.

I'm surprised at the number of people who don't know about Ann Sothern's theatrical background. Under her real name of Harriet Lake, Sothern was in any number of shows on Broadway, she in fact starred in one of Rodgers&Hart's musicals before coming to Hollywood. It was only in television that she seems to have given up the musical part of her performing persona.

Hooray For Love is an enjoyable piece of Thirties backstage fluff with the main features being Robinson and Waller and a different kind of role for Thurston Hall.

Brash college man Gene Raymond is a would-be producer of musical shows. Ann Sothern sings in a nightclub. Thurston Hall is Sothern's father, another would-be producer looking for some money to put on his show, Hooray for Love, which will star his daughter. Raymond manages to borrow a bunch of money to finance the show, and the trio set about putting on an extravaganza.

Along the way, the show is off-again, on-again. The producers may be wanted by the police. Raymond gets to be great pals with Sothern and they exchange silly dialog. ("If this hadn't have happened, I'd have never discovered what a sap I am, would I?" "Oh yes, you would. I would have told you.")

The action slows way down for a series of musical numbers shown in rehearsal. A ballet bit with the famous Maria Gambarelli is impressive but feels out of a place. It's followed by a comic relief song delivered by Pert Kelton while her manager Etienne Girardot looks on fondly and musical director Lionel Stander makes rude comments. Sadly, it's just not too funny.

Later on, we do get a real musical highlight called "Living in a Great Big Way," with Bill Robinson, Fats Waller, and an almost forgotten dancer named Jeni Le Gon who is sensational. Again, it has nothing to do with the story but it sure is fun.

The plot, such as it is, finally reaches its conclusion and provides the expected answers to questions like, Will the show go on? And Will the stars get together? Overall, it's not great but has some good moments.