Something for the Boys

As is the usual case with Cole Porter shows, they never arrive intact to the big screen. In the case of Something For The Boys only the title song at the very beginning of the film and sung by Vivian Blaine is kept in the score.

Vivian Blaine has the part that Ethel Merman played on stage for the 422 performance Broadway run. She is one of three disparate cousins who inherit a rundown old southern mansion that saw its best days during the run of the Confederate States Of America. The other cousins are Carmen Miranda and Phil Silvers. Their grandfather must have led an interesting life. While they're deciding what to do with the dilapidated house, their savior comes in the person of Sergeant Michael O'Shea. In a character obviously based on Glenn Miller, O'Shea is a bandleader drafted into the army and he hits upon the idea of converting the mansion into a guest house for army wives. And in the tradition of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland they decide to put on a show to raise the needed capital to fix the house up.

The rest of the score is composed by Jimmy McHugh and Harold Adamson and truly nothing memorable comes from it. Perry Como plays a small part and only sings. He never really clicked as a film star.

Romantic complications ensue when Sheila Ryan shows up also and she and O'Shea were an item before the war. Ryan is one of those southern belles dripping with honeysuckle and acid.

And of course we've got Carmen Miranda and that's always a treat.

Despite the emasculation of the Cole Porter score, Something For The Boys is pleasant enough entertainment about three cousins doing their bit for the war effort.

Mild musical boosted by Miranda's sheer pizazz. I love that wacky part where her tooth tunes into a radio station. Heck, that's even better than an iPhone. It's a TCF production, which means well-stocked production numbers with lots of girls kicking up their heels. I guess that's what they mean by the title. Then there's Phil Silvers doing an early version of Sgt. Bilko and talking faster than a machine gun spits bullets, along with a fetching Vivian Blaine as eye candy. And catch a young Perry Como doing his tunes in typically sleepy time fashion.

But a chuncky O'Shea seems an odd choice of leading man for a musical. Nonetheless, this was wartime, so the leading man pool was limited. All in all, the songs may not be memorable, while, the script underplays the promising premise. Still, there's Miranda doing her wacky bit, plus lots of colorful stage bits, and a share of chuckles. So the musical may not be front-rank, but does have its compensations, and even now, remains 'something for the boys'.

This is a Carmen Miranda movie, and she's is the main reason to endure the rest of it. For instance: the manic-anything-for-a-laugh humor of Phil Silvers only occasionally raises above annoyance, the lead Michael O'Shea is singularly charmless, the meandering plot poorly peeled off the Cole Porter Broadway success is pretty silly--and only one Porter song makes an appearance in the first ten minutes. So why watch it at all? Miranda dazzles and sparkles and plays with the King's English in full Fox Technicolor drag, and there's a chorus number in pink polka dot aprons that is great top-tapping fun; Vivian Blaine sings a few forgettable numbers in the wistful Alice Faye style, and if you look closely, you can see Judy Holliday in a bit role. Verdict: Fun for patient Miranda fans or fans of World War II patriotic flag-wavers; perhaps a bit silly for most modern viewers. Major bonus: Extras include an hour-long near-definitive biography of Carmen Miranda, which, in some ways, is better than the film

Carmen Miranda at her funniest as Chiquita Hart... imagine Phil Silvers and her as cousins..and they inherit a house down South and turn it into a place for wartime wives..

Look for a young Perry Como singing 'I wish we didn't have to say goodnight'....

If you are a Carmen Miranda fan, try to see this film.

I saw this film in 2001 on American Movie Classics (when that channel was still showing commercial-free classic films). The middle section of the film as shown had three ten minute sections which were scrambled and not shown in the proper order. It was confusing to watch the film as a result. With the aid of two VCRs, I painstakingly copied the film and edited the sections into correct order so that I could view the film properly.

Fox Movie Channel showed the film on Monday (Memorial Day) and I was surprised to see that the same scrambled version that was shown on AMC was shown on the Fox Channel. I would have thought that they would have corrected it by now, seven years later!

The film is being released on DVD next month as part of the Carmen Miranda Collection. I'm wondering whether the DVD will have a correct version or whether it will still be the messed up version.