Swing Hostess

Martha Tilton has been auditioning for a position as a band singer for what seems like forever. Finally, she and her friend Iris Adrian take a job as operators in a juke-box center, where customers call in for a particular song at their location. Meanwhile, a test record a friend made for her gets mixed up with one done by Betty Brodel, who's being drooled over by record producer Harry Holman. Because it's actually Miss Tilton's voice -- she had been a vocalist for Benny Goodman, with a hit recording of "And the Angels Sing" -- Miss Brodel gets a contract and a chance to sing for Charles Collins' band.

It's a plot that's not remarkable in broad, and it's been done many times, well and poorly. This one has several advantages, including songs by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston, a couple of years before they hit it big. There are also some nice moments of gag comedy, and it's a pleasure to watch the professional musicians gawp in horrified astonishment at Miss Brodel's voice.

It also has a nice example of inadvertent documentary, showing how centralized jukebox systems worked.

The names in this are not ones to conjure with. Behind the camera was Jack Greenhaigh, a talented cinematographer who never got out of the Bs and frequently used his considerable talents lensing ludicrous films like ROBOT MONSTER and HITLER -- BEAST OF BERLIN. Sam Newfield, a mainstay of the usually dire PRC, directed, and shows that with a good script and eager talent, he can turn out a happy, modest movie.

SWING HOSTESS is a vivid example how falling into public domain might just be the best thing that could happen to an obscure movie. This long-forgotten "B" movie (B- really) from PRC has nearly ten reviews currently up on IMDb no doubt thanks to it being available in Mill Creek's 50 Musical movie pack and other p.d. issues by other companies while hundreds of other obscure still-copyrighted minor films from the era sit unreviewed and unseen in studio vaults.

Benny Goodman band vocalist Martha Tilton (perhaps best known today for dubbing Barbara Stanwyck's vocals in BALL OF FIRE) stars as Judy, a girl hoping to break into show business as a singer. Judy resides at a boarding house crammed with show business wanna-bes including snooty Phoebe (Betty Brodel), a hopelessly untalented yet arrogant young woman who also wants to be a singer. Both girls try to land a gig singing with a band but when Judy's audition record is mistaken for Phoebe's vocalizing, it's Miss no talent who gets the contract while Judy is forced to find work elsewhere to pay the bills, landing a job as a "record operator", where quasi-jukeboxes in drugstores and restaurants have a phone where the customers puts in their coin and calls the record operator who plays the record through the line!! Apparently there really were such jukeboxes in the 1940's as has been mentioned Doris Day also played such a record operator in one of her first movies.

The movie is surprisingly polished for a PRC musical with an almost entirely unknown cast other than Tilton and Iris Adrian, as her wisecracking best friend. This was one of Adrian's early film roles and it appears to be her largest part ever, billed second to Tilton. As has been mentioned there's a touch of the future film SINGIN' IN THE RAIN's plot but I was also surprised to see a segment where the boardhouse gang deliberately wrecks snooty Phoebe's nightclub engagement which has strong parallels to the famous similar scene in an future 1950's I LOVE LUCY episode in which Ethel gets hoity and Lucy, Ricky, and Fred pay her back by attempting to ruin her singing appearance in her hometown.

Character actor Harry Holman plays the old girl-crazy executive who is temporarily bewitched by Phoebe while the somewhat more familiar Emmett Lynn has a rather obnoxious character as Blodgett, the slovenly boarding house resident who can never seem to get to use the place's lone bathroom. One Claire Rochelle does very well as Holman's long-suffering secretary. As another reviewer mentions the movie curiously ships off the character Joe Sweeney (played by Earle Bruce in apparently his only film role) from the story midway as a near-boyfriend of Judy's who helps her get her first break, leaving the door open for what is suggested will be a romance after the movie's end with Judy and bandleader "Benny Jackson" (played by Charles Collins). Earle Bruce is quite handsome and does not do a bad job, it's odd this is his only film particularly in that era when so many young actors had to leave the film industry and service their country in the war (perhaps Bruce himself was drafted shortly after this film like his film character). There's also a stunningly handsome young brunette man in the cast among the acrobat act that resides at the boarding house, given that none of the guys is ever referred to by name one can not tell who he is although all three are billed (Bob Gooding, Walter Pietila, Gene Windson) as are Dave White and John Evans, as a "Chick and Chuck" dance team we never see dance but presumably they are the other guys seen at the boarding house. On the other hand, two character actresses with sizable dialogue and several scenes (the old lady who is the supervisor of the jukebox operators and a sassy middle-aged waitress wearing a Betty Grable hairstyle a little too young for her in a role very much like the ones Iris Adrian herself play in later years) are unbilled and to date, unidentified.

Although it's plot of a booking agent desperately in need of a new female vocalist and having trouble finding a good one in New York (!!!) is pretty silly, the movie is so well made and a nice little slice of life of big city living in the war years with an appealing if modest star performance from Martha Tilton, it's definitely worth a view.

This opus glaringly displays the lack of talent that 'poverty row' studios had to contend with compared to the major players. You won't find much here in the way of decent Set design, make-up, clever editing or good photography. Martha Tilton has a nice voice but doesn't project any personality, although this may be the fault of the poor direction. The only performance really worth watching is that of the gorgeous Iris Adrian and even she is just a little too strident in the role. Earle Bruce brings some macho charisma to his role but incredibly this appears to be the only film he ever made. Although it's not a total write-off it certainly makes you realise that a major studio could have brought so many incidental extras to the filming that they could turn even the flimsiest material into something worth watching.

Judy (Martha Tilton) auditions as a singer for a band but her audition isn't properly heard by the man that counts and she gets rejected. She then goes to make a record but once again fortune goes against her as her voice is mistaken for that of Phoebe (Betty Brodel) who wins a singing contract as a result. Will Judy realize her dream to become a singer.............?

The film is light and entertaining and Martha Tilton has a great voice. She sings 4 good songs and 1 turkey called "The Highway Polka". The latter song is painful to watch mainly due to Bobo's (Cliff Nazarro) cheesy smiling face and very predictable honking of his car horn. He also speaks in a stupid way. The other irritating character is the landlord Blodgett (Emmett Lynn) who is one of those comedy characters that just isn't ever funny. The rest of the cast are OK and the film has some funny moments, eg, Brodel's bad singing and the reactions of the piano player. It's the singing of Martha Tilton that makes this film something to watch again.

Sig Neufeld made a ton of cheapo movies during the 1930s-50s. Some (such as some of his Tim McCoy westerns) were pretty good but some were pretty bad....and all were made quickly above all else. In the case of "Swing Hostess" he not only made the film but released it through PRC...one of the cheapest and worst outfits of their day. So, it's not particularly surprising that "Swing Hostess" isn't particularly good.

When the film begins, Judy (Martha Tilton) is a poor aspiring band singer. She's out of work and cannot seem to get anywhere when she tries out for various producers. However, her break seems assured when she makes a lovely recording at a local studio...but it's lost when the record is accidentally mixed up and a no-talent gets credit for the single. Can they manage to straighten all this out and Judy get a chance to sing for the Benny Jackson band?

This film, not surprisingly, has a lot of singing. After all, Martha Tilton was a famous big band singer and so she croons repeatedly....and it's rather pleasant. However, despite decent music, the film also suffers from sloppy writing and some obnoxious characters. Overall, a passable time-passer but not exactly a film you should rush to see. And, actually, for PRC this is all very glowing praise!