The Big Show-Off

Apart from Wally Cox, I have a hard time imagining an actor LESS likely to be able to convincingly play a professional wrestler than Arthur Lake. Lake played Dagwood Bumstead in a long series of Blondie movies in the 1930s-1950s.....and Dagwood was a decidedly non-macho guy...but here he is in a film where he's pretending to be a wrestling he-man!!

Sandy (Lake) is a mild-mannered pianist who is occasionally picked on by the emcee of the club where they both work. June (Dale Evans) is a lovely singer at the club and Sandy is secretly smitten with her. However, when he sees her at a wrestling match, he realizes she loves burly he-men like The Devil, a bad-boy masked wrestler. Their boss (Lionel Stander) decides to help and tells June that Sandy IS The Devil....but it's a secret! What's Sandy to do....go with this ruse or tell her the truth?

This film requires a bit of suspension of belief...that's for sure! But the story is cute and made me smile...silly as it is. And, for a cheap B-movie, "The Big Show-Off" is terrific...one of the better B films you can find.

In between the hiatus of the Blondie movie series, Arthur Lake made several films independent of them of which this was the only one I found online. Co-starring Dale Evans-yes, the partner and future wife of Roy Rogers-this is a mistaken identity plot involving wrestlers and also has some music like the song "There Is Only One You" which Ms. Evans wrote and sung here and would also eventually perform on "The Roy Rogers Show" on TV a decade later. Also in this picture is Lionel Stander-the future butler Max on "Hart to Hart"-as the nightclub owner employer of Lake and Ms. Evans and their best friend. All I'll now say is this was quite funny for an obscure movie. So on that note, The Big Show-Off is worth a look.

after a miserable day at work I watched this 1945 film and my mood immediately lifted. How can you go wrong with Arthur Lake (during his period of playing Dagwood in the Blondie series)and Dale Evans (sans her hubby Roy Rogers)making a delightful duo. He's a shy pianist at the club where he teams with Dale, a singer. He can't get the girl and is the butt of jokes from George Meeker (as sleazy MC). But his boss Lionel Stander likes him (Max from Hart to Hart)and helps him in his plan to pretend that he is really the manly masked wrestler!!! that Dale admires so that she will fall for him. Lots of fun and mistaken identities abound. Especially liked two of the song numbers- Dale singing Hoops My Dear to a background of chorus girls with hoola hoops (got to be a first!!)at the nightclub and Dale singing (her own composition)at the music school where the musicians all wander in from their various rooms to join in. Also liked the cartoon drawings over the credits they got Lionel Stander's crumpled features to a T. Don't think to hard about this one just enjoy it, I certainly did.

This is kind of a one gag film with pianist Arthur Lake pretending to be a masked wrestler known as "the Devil." This could easily be a plot on a half hour situation comedy. Veteran Director Howard Bretherton, who started in silent films, does a good job of keeping the plot moving, keeping it amusing and finishing it in less than an hour. You have two fine character actors in bumbling Arthur Lake and tough guy with a heart of gold Lionel Stander. They are both playing characters in their comfort zone. It is nice to see Dale Evans without hubby Roy Rogers here. She gets more of a chance to act and show her comic side than in most of the Roy Rogers Westerns she was in. She's really quite charming, coming off kind of like Joan Blondell. You're not going to write home to the family about this one, but it does put a pleasant goofy smile on your face for an hour.

Arthur Lake takes a break from the BLONDIE series to appear in this very pleasant comedy for Republic. He's the piano-player at Lionel Stander's nightclub and in love with Dale Evans (who's taking a break from Roy Rogers), and unaware that Dale is sweet on him. Convinced that she likes muscular, aggressive men, Lionel convinces her Lake moonlights as "The Devil", a masked wrestler, played by a picture-painting Paul Hurst. Naturally, Dale is distressed by the thought and tries to get Lake to quit the ring; however, Hurst doesn't want to give up the character, and no one can figure out how to fix the situation.

Republic is best remembered for cowboy pictures and one Oscar winner, THE QUIET MAN, but it was quite a lively minor studio which produced some good movies when studio boss Herbert Yates wasn't trying to promote his wife, Vera Hruba Ralston, into a major star. Under the direction of studio jack-of-all-trades Howard Breatherton, it's a lively little musical comedy, with a nicely shot production number early on, a few good eccentric comedy bits by minor players, and some nice acting by the leads; Miss Evans shows more range than she had since her early days at RKO and Lake gets to moderate the flustered idiot he had been playing since silent movies. In total, it's a very pleasant movie with a couple of laugh-out-loud moments.