Priorities on Parade

This is clearly a long forgotten musical as is evidenced by the fact that it has not registered 5 votes.Yet i have to say it is very entertaining.There is singing and dancing from Ann Miller and comedy from Jerry Colunna.Colunna used of course to be Bob Hope's straight man and turned up in a good many films in the 40s.He had a big mustache and a very loud voice which he put to good use in shouting rather than singing songs.What you could term a lowbrow Mario Lanza!The film is centered around a dance band entertaining a war plant and sacrificing their musical careers for the war.So at certain times the message is sold to you good and hard.Give up your $2000 a week contract and work in a war plant!Anyway ignoring the message it is all good fun.

Here is top-billed Ann Miller with blonde hair. I really studied her in this film, and I don't think it's a wig.It must have taken gallons of peroxide to get her black hair blonde. Miller provides her usual snazzy tap dancing.

This film has peppy music, although none of it memorable enough to be included with "standards", or even memorable enough to have survived into present day, even though the composers were top-notch talent. Miller, Johnnie Johnstone and Betty Rhodes provide the vocals, with a little bit of Jerry Colonna's nonsense.

Vera Vague, the character created by Barbara Jo Allen, is listed in the credits under the character's name. Vague is the ditzy man-hungry ugly duckling, as the girlfriend of leading lady Rhodes.

The plot is topical for 1942 World War II: patriotism, war-effort, swing music, and with the usual boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl in the end story included. Is it a "B" picture? Maybe, although it's a big too long for that category, but with lesser talents making up the cast, perhaps not an "A" picture, either. It would be an interesting project to research old newspaper advertisements to see how it was presented.

The act breaks up, with the boys who make up the band going to work at an airplane plant, and singer/dancer Ann Miller to a night club. The group's leader, Johnny Johnston, becomes a welder's assistant, and is assigned to Betty Jane Rhodes. Of course they clash. But Rhodes isn't giving up his dreams of making it big in show business, so the boys start playing at shift's end. Morale and production soar.

Paramount made a lot of flag-waving musicals in this period, and here we are again. The songs are by Frank Loesser and Jules Styne, and ok, if not great. Miss Miller gets a couple of flashy numbers, and of course there's a big finale. The cast listings are interesting; Miss Miller is top-billed, even though that's not the central love affair. For those who enjoy them, there's Jerry Colonna, Barbara Jo Allen playing her Vera Vague character, Harry Barris, Eddie Quillan, and if you look fast you may be able to spot Rod Cameron.