Amour et swing

Higher and Higher was one of Rodgers&Hart's lesser Broadway musicals it only had a run of 84 performances on Broadway in 1940. Yet it yielded one of their bigger hits It Never Entered My Mind.

Nevertheless except for one minor song, So Disgustingly Rich, the entire Broadway score was scrapped when RKO bought the film rights. Instead a whole new score by Jimmy McHugh and Harold Adamson was written, mostly to accommodate one Francis Albert Sinatra who was making his feature film debut.

Sinatra who had done some vocal cameos in previous films, takes a leaf from the page of his singing rival Bing Crosby. When Bing did his feature film debut in The Big Broadcast, he played Bing Crosby. Frank Sinatra took on the role of Frank Sinatra and I can't think of anyone who could have done a better job.

The Chairman of the Board is billed third here behind stars Jack Haley and Michele Morgan. He's the butler and she's the scullery maid to Leon Errol. In fact Errol is a millionaire who hasn't paid his help for seven months. Mainly because he's about to go belly up into chapter 11 or so he informs the staff.

Errol's a delightful old soul to work for and none of the staff want to lose a good thing. They pool their resources and get Michele Morgan to impersonate Errol's daughter who's over in Switzerland with her mother. The idea being to snag a rich bankroll in the hopes rescuing the family fortune. Only Michele starts looking at another.

It's a slight plot and certainly no worse than a whole lot of musicals, but RKO invested this film with a good cast of players. Barbara Hale and Elizabeth Risdon play another débutante and her mother who suspect something's not right, Victor Borge is a fortune seeking no account, Dooley Wilson, Paul Hartman, Grace Hartman, Marcy McGuire, Mel Torme and Mary Wickes, play others of the Errol household staff. Not a bad bunch at all.

Sinatra sang three good ballads all of them had some kind of commercial success, The Music Stopped, A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening, and I Couldn't Sleep a Wink Last Night. The last one was nominated for an Oscar for Best Song, but lost to Alice Faye's You'll Never Know.

1943 was the year of the Musician's Union Strike against the recording industry. To get their material out, Frank Sinatra recorded the songs from Higher and Higher with an acapella chorus for Columbia. Bing Crosby recorded songs from his film Dixie in the same manner for Decca. Both of them were denounced by the president of the union, James C. Petrillo as strikebreakers and both did not cross the picket line again. The strike wasn't settle completely until 1944 although Decca broke ranks earlier from the other record companies and settled earlier than Columbia, RCA Victor and the others.

The strike provided some anxious moments for Sinatra. He had just left the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra when the strike was called. It closed off a needed venue for his artistry when he wasn't sure whether leaving Dorsey would prove to be a right career move.

Fortunately Higher and Higher was received well a legend was launched.

Cyrus Drake is a rich businessman who has had his staff of servants for many years – a situation that is put a risk when bad investments bankrupt him and threaten to put his loyal staff on the street. To bring money back into the family again, the servants plan to marry off the youngest maid, Millie to a rich man. The staff all pick their roles to establish the ruse, while Millie starts being taught how to be a well educated debutante. However their plans are endangered when singer Frank Sinatra moves in next door and Millie tries to hide her affection for fellow servant Michael.

Billed as a Frank Sinatra film now, really this is a standard romance of the time, which features Frank in a small role as himself in order to get the teenage crowd in the doors (and they say cynical marketing at teens is a recent thing!). Ignoring this role the film is very much an ordinary piece of entertainment that was very much of the period – a piece of fluff with a convoluted plot, musical numbers, misunderstandings and true love finding a way by the end. In this regard it is OK but quite average, with no real laughs, no significantly moving moments and nothing that really stands out. The script allows for enough to go on to keep the interest but it is all pretty thin and gradually slips into nothingness with only frequent and lively musical numbers serving to keep boredom at bay. The silly twist towards the end is a good example of how lazy the scriptwriters were – basing their happy ending on the thinnest of plot devices.

The cast are mostly OK – a mix of romantic parts and fast-talking characters. Sinatra didn't do that well playing himself and he looked uncomfortable – like he had been forcibly inserted into the film and felt unwelcome. He got better with time but here he is pretty wooden. Morgan is likable as Millie and Haley enjoys himself with the sort of character that usually plays the sidekick as opposed to his lead role here. Support from Errol, Wickes and an early role from a beautiful Hale (best known as Della Street to my generation) are all good value and help the material appear more interesting and lively than it actually is.

Overall this is very much of its period and it is an average at that. Sinatra may not actually add much on screen but his name made it a bigger film than it could have been and ensures that it gets repeated on television quite often when others have been forgotten. As afternoon television filler it does the job but it is a wholly unremarkable film even with the presence of Sinatra and I imagine that, without his involvement that it would have long since been forgotten.

As a stage play it must have been a hilarious farce, as a film with a

truly great cast it is very funny indeed. To have all those appealing

character actors like Mary Wickes and Victor Borge along with

headliners like Sinatra and Jack Haley all set in a well furnished

RKO mansion adding crooner Mel Torme and a few excellent

songs: "I saw you first" and "A lovely way to spend an evening" and

a good situation comedy storyline, HIGHER AND HIGHER is great

fun. There is a wide range to the tunes too, with some hep jive

from Marcie and Mel and crooner swooner from Frank.....and on a

bicycle too. Sinatra would have been 28 when he made this and

his visual appeal is also undeniable. Good 40s musical stage to

film adaptation.

This is not the best of films, but a cute, fluffy romantic musical comedy. The real treat is seeing Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme, and Victor Borge as young men - 3 true legends.

This was the first RKO picture for Sinatra of a 3 film RKO deal. However, Louis B. Mayer was a fan of Sinatra's - his rendition of Ol' Man River moved him to tears. Mayer contacted RKO & bought out Sinatra's RKO contract in order to bring him to MGM.

While a far cry from a "great musical classic" HIGHER AND HIGHER does have its moments. Most of them are provided by the young Frank Sinatra. As part of the Frnak Sinatra DVD collections, this flimsy musical showcases him well. I kind of liked Sinatra as the youngish, cute and innocent characters he played in this first films and up to FROM HERE TO ETERNITY. That's when he lost the "boyishness" and became a mature actor, which he handled with ease. HIGHER AND HIGHER has a cute plot that's really kind of a fairy tale, but fun. The supporting cast is really good and makes up for the plot line and contrivences. Michelle Morgan is well cast as the scullery maid turned debutante for plot purposes. Never cared for Jack Haley, but everyone else was fun. Look for a young Barbara Hale and Mel Torme. Most of the songs are well done and Sinatra could do no wrong in any of his numbers. My favorite I COULDN'T SLEEP A WINK LAST NIGHT. For some light fun and breezy entertainment, I recommend HIGHER AND HIGHER.