L'Étoile des étoiles

I suppose that Technicolour was a big selling point when this film came out (1946). The colour is beautiful to look at, but much of the rest of the film is rather slim. In this film, Rita Hayworth is a muse who becomes upset when she learns that a Broadway musical is going to portray her as a jive crazy love machine. She heads to earth to correct matters and the audience settles in for 101 minutes of unmemorable musical numbers and several poorly choreographed dance scenes.

Allow me to guess what happened here. Columbia was looking for a musical vehicle for Hayworth, then at the top of her career. They had script for a B musical ready to roll, but they needed to beef it up a bit. So what they did was steal a few of the characters from a past hit, HERE COME MR. JORDAN, added Technicolour, and hoped that it would prove enough of a draw. If you do watch this film, note how poorly the JORDAN characters are worked in - especially Max Corkle.

Elements of the Broadway musical DOWN TO EARTH also appear in Fred Astaire's THE BAND WAGON, which came out in 1953 - but the numbers in the later film were far more memorable. I had enjoyed HERE COMES MR. JORDAN, and was curious as to what the sequal would be like. My curiosity has been satisfied - yet another half-baked movie sequel.

I was very surprised to have stumbled on Down To Earth on early morning television as I was recently having a discussion on Terpsichore (really!).

Anyway, it is a darned pretty film to look at for the Technicolour and Rita Hayworth alone, but it was so sad to see her so wasted on hideously mediocre musical numbers. The costumes and the sets were lovely and her fabulous red hair never looked better! What was so bizarre was this musical sequence she sings about wanting to marry two men -- who are more than eager to comply! Just watching the dancing steps of the two grooms made me uncomfortable.

Having this film based on an all-time classic was another huge error but bringing back Edward Everett Horton was the right move! He is always exceptional in his little character roles...

Wow, Columbia Pictures really shocked me with how this film began. Believe it or not, it is a sequel, of sorts, to "Here Comes Mr. Jordan". While the main character (Robert Montgomery) is not in the film, many of the other characters are--such as his friend and agent (James Gleason) and the angel (Edward Everett Horton). However, this time they are not dealing with an accidental death and how to rectify it but with the angry Terpsichore (Rita Hayworth). Apparently, this Muse got wind of a Broadway musical down on Earth in which she and the other gods are portrayed incorrectly! She asks Mr. Jordan is she can have permission to go to New York and fix this problem. Jordan agrees and sends his befuddled angel (Horton) along as her assistant and to be sure she doesn't break any rules in fixing the play.

While the producer does immediately fall under Terpsichore's spell and lets her re-write the play as well as star in it, there is a serious problem. The final product is just awful--sort of like a Wagnerian opera and Busby Berkeley hybrid that dumbfounded the audience--and effectively killed the show. While it was SUPPOSED to be bad, I can't see why the Columbia folks also insisted on showing so much of this bad play that was supposed to be bad! In other words, why torment the audience when they can just show tiny snippets and let us know the audience hated it--instead of making the movie audience wonder why the heck they went to see this when there was a perfectly good Clark Gable film playing down the street!! Too, too much...that's for sure! Well, despite the problems, this is only about midway through the film--so it's obvious that something will happen next. What this is and how the whole production is salvaged (if it is) is for you to see for yourself. However, it's not one of the better musicals of the era and is no where nearly as good as "Here Comes Mr. Jordan"--so you'll have to decide if it's worth it!

Oddly, practically everyone in this movie cannot sing--a serious problem as it's a musical!! Many of the characters were dubbed and while Rita Hayworth was gorgeous, it was silly to pick a lead who could sing (though she was a fantastic dancer). I think the reason she was used is because she was the studio chief's (Roy Cohn) pet actress--and he featured her in practically all of the studio's A-pictures during this era. I guess, in an odd way, I can understand this--but why use Larry Parks and a couple others who also couldn't sing?!

Aside from its very dubious views on the afterlife and theology, this is an enjoyable bit of fluff and no more--and certainly not a must-see. However, the main story idea was never good enough to have encouraged some idiots to remake it decades later as the god-awful "Xanadu". Aside from some good music, "Xanadu" should rank as one of the dumbest major studio films of the last 40 years!

It would seem only natural that the greatest of screen goddesses would be cast as one of the residents of Olympus, but Rita Hayworth more than fills the part. Something tells me that if she and Terpsichore were talking now, Terpsichore would be real happy with Rita.

I don't think she would be all that happy with the film as a whole, but the Greek Deities are a hard subject for the theater. Rodgers&Hart did well by them in By Jupiter, their last original collaboration. But Cole Porter had a misfire with them in Out Of This World. And the team of Doris Fisher and Allan Roberts aren't quite of the caliber of Porter and Rodgers&Hart. No great songs come out of the score here and that certainly would have helped the film a lot.

In Down To Earth, Terpsichore does just that when up in her celestial viewing spot she sees that performer/producer Larry Parks planning a musical comedy that is a satire of the Greek Gods. She's not happy that liberties are being taken with her relations so she comes down and of course gets the dancing lead and the leading man, sort of.

Rita Hayworth was dubbed by Anita Ellis who did her songs in a few of her Forties films. But why people were expecting the voice of Larry Parks in his one duet with Hayworth to be Al Jolson's, those Greek Gods only know. Parks was dubbed by a singer named Hal Derwin and I took a look at Mr. Derwin's credits and he dubbed at various times, Lee Bowman, Gene Nelson, and Bob Cummings in various films. It wasn't Jolson by why would anyone expect that.

Helping out in Down to Earth are three roles from Here Comes Mr. Jordan, one of Columbia's earlier comedy/fantasy hits. Stepping in for Claude Rains as the all knowing Mr. Jordan is Roland Culver. And repeating their roles from Here Comes Mr. Jordan are Edward Everett Horton as the snippy heavenly messenger and James Gleason as the good hearted, but slightly confused Max Corkle who has quit managing fighters and is now an actor's agent. I suppose the job calls for the same skills.

But this film is really Rita Hayworth's show. She's at the height of her screen fame when this was made and one look at her by young fans who might not have been alive when she was will tell you why that woman was the greatest screen sex symbol ever.

So in overcoming a mediocre musical score Rita makes this film as personally her own as Gilda in the previous year. Not as good as Gilda, but all Rita.

Danny Miller is producing a musical on Broadway, Swinging the Muses, about two war pilots who end up in the days of Greek mythology romanced by a man hungry Terpsichore, the Greek Goddess of song and dance. This portrayal upsets the real Terpsichore who decides to go down to earth and make the musical accurate. Enter once again Mr. Jordan and messenger 7013, to help her come to the land of mortals and into the play, where she gets the lead role easily (using the name of Kitty Pendleton). Terpsichore/Kitty and Danny have constant arguments over the way the musical is being presented, but Danny becomes so infatuated with Kitty that the musical, in a preview, is presented accurately, which when produced becomes an artistic and symphonic production, but bores the audience to sleep or an early exit. When Danny decides to do the musical the way it was intended to be, Kitty storms off the set and asks Mr. Jordan to return to heaven, but Mr. Jordan informs Kitty that Danny needs this play to succeed, since its being backed by a racketeer, Manion, who Danny owes $20,000 to in gambling losses, and if the show flops, Danny will be "rubbed out". Kitty then decides to return and make the show a success, even though she realizes she will have to return to heaven and lose Danny. The movie is good, but really lacks much of the charm of its predecessor, Here Comes Mr. Jordan. The film is a star vehicle for Hayworth, but she is very enchanting in the role. Parks wasn't romantic leading material, but has the talent to get by (still has his singing voice lip-synced). Culver's Mr. Jordan is less charming and a more serious version than Claude Rains' version, but his performance is still admirable. Horton and Gleason are the only ones reprising their roles from the original. The film's setback is that the musical numbers aren't that good and seem to last forever (the last one from the film is OK, but the two versions of the ancient Greek setting musical drag on for an eternity). Still a good film, but you may be lost or disinterested if you didn't watch Here Comes Mr. Jordan. Rating, 7.