Zis Boom Bah

Behind the jumpin' title this rather subdued Monogram programme-filler resembles 'Stella Dallas' for the first two thirds with the twist that mom is an opera singer in elegant kid gloves and the initially unacknowledged son is a honky tonk entertainer (whose repertoire includes 'hilarious' impressions of Charles Laughton & Ronald Colman).

The funky stuff (including Huntz Hall in drag) eventually takes centre stage for the rousing finale in which (SPOILER COMING:) Peter Lind Hayes and his real-life wife Mary Healey (the two of them best-known for 'The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T') join each other before an ecstatic audience while tears well up in Hayes' real-life mother Grace Hayes' eyes. The End.

Grace Hayes is giving up performing. She and protege Mary Healy will hunt new talent, maybe produce.... but first she needs to see her son (played by real-life son Peter Lind Hayes). He thinks she's dead like her father, and his grandfather, president of a small college, has had the raising of him. When she discovers how snobbish and profligate he is, she decides to stick around and reform everyone. Of course that means all the young people will put on a show.

The show within the show is a pretty good one, with some nice tunes -- even Huntz Hall sings, and sings well! -- good tap and chorus line dancing and some nice trumpet playing. If this movie were a revue, it would be a good, if not outstanding musical. It is not, however, a revue, but a book musical, and the story idea is fine, the acting is good, the comedy is a bit corny but well performed. However, either the writers that producer Sam Katzman didn't bother to polish the script so that it made much sense, or editor Robert Golden didn't know how to cut a movie. Maybe both. His credits as an editor are utterly undistinguished, except for one picture: NIGHT OF THE HUNTER. Well, maybe Charles Laughton did the actual editing on that one and Golden just handling the physical side of the job.

Despite the poor result, it must have been a happy set. Miss Healy would marry Mr. Hayes and they would live and perform together until his death.

The main portion of this lightweight musical story is located at fictional Midwick College, which Peter Kendricks (Peter Lind Hayes) attends due to the largesse of stage actress Grace Hayes, his real-life mother who fills the same role here, and who manages to supply his love interest through her secretary Mary (Healy) who is his real-life wife. Drably directed from a weak script, and additionally hampered by excessive cutting and poor editing, this film does provide some treasures among its eight songs, including the title number, and has nice turns by soprano Healy, Benny Rubin as a snack shop proprietor, and the dynamic tap dancing Roland Dupree.

Having some idle time before going to work, I looked at my "50 Movie Pack Comedy Classics" DVD collection and picked the most obscure title in the pack: Zis Boom Bah starring a forgotten Grace Hayes. "Classics" is obviously the operative word here since most of the titles I've never heard of and I suspect they're all in the public domain. Anyway, this movie also stars her son Peter Lind and his wife Mary Healy (who I just found out is a New Orleans native from the state I live in, Louisiana) with Benny Rubin as a malt shop proprietor and Huntz Hall, taking a break from the East Side Kids, as Peter's buddy. The plot, about a vaudeville mother trying to turn her rich carefree son into a responsible one with him unaware of who she is, is for the birds and doesn't have many funny scenes though I did like Peter's celebrity impersonations and his dance with Hall in drag. And the songs and dances are entertaining in themselves. Rubin, however, is all over the place with his confusion of the American vernacular of the time and almost everything concerning him makes no sense whatsoever (though I did like his funny dance). Since this was only 61 minutes that I'm sure played on the lower-half of the double feature bill, I'll be charitable and give this one a 3 for the few entertaining bits that I mentioned enjoying.

Was this film a spoof? Of course, it's far fetched, but so are many films of this era. I thought it was delightful and happy to see family members playing together.