Washington Melodrama

During the era in which "Washington Melodrama" was made, there must have been a bazillion murder mystery B-movies. However, this film uses the familiar formula and brightens it up with an A-movie treatment. This means that instead of a 60 minute (give or take) running time like a B would have and mostly unknown actors, this one has a few bigger name actors, a running time of 80 minutes and a nice polished MGM look.

When the film begins, Calvin Claymore (Frank Morgan) is in DC pushing for a war relief bill. His family, on the other hand, are traveling about and he's left alone...alone and lonely. So a Senator decides to take him for a night on the town...at one of the strangest nightclubs in film history!* Morgan meets a nice young lady and soon they begins spending time together...platonic time...nothing sexual. However, after breaking off their friendship before it goes further, her vicious boss arrives at her apartment and he murders her. There doesn't appear to be any evidence the boss was there...but there is about Calvin and soon he'll be the #1 suspect. To help save his butt, his daughter (Ann Rutherford) comes to the rescue.

The acting and plot are quite nice and the film enjoyable. Overall, a very good film with a few noir qualities--such as the incredibly brutal murder--one of the nastiest and most vivid of the era!

*The nightclub features a water show...which makes little sense because it would be difficult for the audience to really see the ladies doing their synchronized swimming. In fact, the only way to really see them well is from above...and filmmakers of the era employed this odd technique quite a few times. Odder yet was when audience members were given fishing rods and were told to try to catch the girls!! Weird.

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.

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

MGM had 2 stalwarts under long time contract: Lionel Barrymore and Frank Morgan... okay, you might throw Lewis Stone in there too. But of all of them, Frank's the most lovable and not given to the hammy theatrics of Barrymore. Here he's a lonely wealthy do-gooder, whose wife's off on an extended vacation in South America. He get's hooked up with a night club floozie at the urging of her coniving partner (Dan Dailey, playing against type) and after an innocent flirtation (she actually begins to care for Frank), she's MURDERED and obviously all fingers seem to point to him, which threatens everything. His daughter (the extremely attractive Ann Rutherford who does a mean French accent when called for) helps save the day with the help of her publisher boyfriend. There's some interesting debate on helping the innocent victims of WWII (we weren't in it yet) and you can see where our sympathies were. This isn't a who done it... it's more of a "how does he get out of it." Is it just me or does Douglass Drumbrille always seem to play the part of Lionel Atwill?