The Big Show-Off

Now that The Big Show-Off is available on Amazon fans of old films can learn 2 things. First that Dale Evans did do films without Roy Rogers and secondly Arthur Lake played someone besides Dagwood Bumstead.

Dale before she became Queen of the West was a vocalist with Anson Weeks's band. So she is here as well and the band is appearing at Lionel Stander's nightclub. Playing for the band is shy pianist Arthur Lake who really is crushing out bad on Dale. But supercilious master of ceremonies George Meeker wants Dale for his own.

Stander who likes Lake tells him he has to assert himself caveman like style. To help him he starts a rumor that he's really noted masked wrestler the Devil played by Paul Hurst. I think you can see where this is going and the comic possibilities along the way.

The players who are pretty well known fall into typecast roles. Dale sings a few forgettable songs and Lake is just Dagwood with another name. Stander is his usual tough guy.

Nothing special here, but fans of all the aforementioned folks should enjoy The Big Show-Off.

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.

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.

A little romance, a little light comedy, a little song and/or dance - and that's a wrap! I guess the world needed something small and frivolous in 1945, and Republic Pictures was happy to provide. It's rather rough in its construction, with instances of choppy editing, brusque cinematography, and meager pacing in addition to some decided ham-handedness. Still, I'd be lying if I said this weren't clever and funny at its best. László Vadnay and Richard Weil poured some fine wit into their screenplay, and between director Howard Brethreton and the cast the proceedings maintain just enough energy to keep the mirth aloft and the audience engaged as pianist Sandy tries to woo singer June, and the "help" of his friend Joe causes makes matters complicated. 'The big show-off' earns some genuine laughs along the way, and the cast is pretty swell themselves, with Arthur Lake, Dale Evans, and Lionel Stander all gladly embracing the silliness; given only a small supporting part, Emmett Lynn is nonetheless highly memorable.

Setting aside some rough edges in a more general sense, I do think this stumbles right at the end where the writing is concerned. Right when the convolutions of romance and ruffles are at their most knotted, the movie makes an enormous leap and blithely informs "and everything ended just so." This is to say that instead of resolving the plot, we're effectively given an unspoken line that says "well, anyway, that all got cleared up," and then a curt final scene. Maybe this is a matter not of Vadnay and Weil's script but some manner in which the work got mangled after the fact, but one way or another it's not a good luck. Still, I've seen much bigger films go much more poorly, and just as this only wanted to have a good time, so does it succeed. The sets and costume design are splendid, the music is suitably enjoyable, and this is aptly entertaining for such a fairly small feature. Even if you're a diehard fan of someone involved or contemporary fare I don't think there's any need to go out of your way for this, but if you do have the chance to watch, 'The big show-off' is a pleasant diversion for a lazy day and worth checking out.

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.