L'Étoile des étoiles

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!

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.

Rita Hayworth shows why she was dubbed "The Love Goddess" in this technicolored musical fantasy incorporating some of the supporting players of "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" to flesh out its plot about Terpsichore returning to earth to help producer (Larry Parks) put on a correct version of his mythological musical. Unfortunately, the script doesn't provide Larry Parks with a role up to his Jolson impersonations and the chemistry between them isn't quite enough to make this more than a routine musical.

Rita is perfectly cast as a goddess and is at her most ravishing. She has several good dance routines which she performs with her customary grace and skill. Larry Parks, then riding the crest of his popularity after "The Jolson Story", does a workmanlike job in a lackluster role. But she steals as the spotlight as the Greek muse of the theater, unhappy about the way the nine Muses are being portrayed. Along with an angel (Edward Everett Horton), she is allowed to go down to earth in an attempt to give the show some class. It's a pleasant enough fantasy and gives Rita the chance to do some fancy footwork in dance routines staged by Jack Cole. The good cast includes Roland Culver, James Gleason and Marc Platt.

For more about Rita, watch for my upcoming career article slated for publication in FILMS OF THE GOLDEN AGE sometime soon.

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...

There were many beautiful women during Hollywood's golden years, but only a small percentage would qualify as goddesses. Rita Hayworth was definitely one of that elite group, possibly never more stunningly beautiful as she appeared in "Down To Earth." As Terpsichore, goddess of music and dance, she comes to earth to star -- and correct -- a Broadway show about Terpsichore. Several characters from "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" appear, with Roland Culver taking the Claude Rains' role of Mr. Jordan. Larry Parks plays the producer-director-star, Danny Miller, who has to pay off a gambling debt with this show or die.

Though the music isn't that memorable, the story is charming, and the film contains a lovely performance and great dancing by Hayworth (whose voice is dubbed by Anita Ellis), and she's given excellent support by James Gleason, Culver, and Edward Everett Horton.

Larry Parks, fresh from his star-making role in "The Jolson Story" does a good job but one wonders, had he not been blacklisted, what would have happened to his career. He wasn't a particularly strong leading man. But we'll never know, because a few years later, he was finished.

As for Hayworth, it's a shame that someone so incredibly beautiful and vivacious, who brought so much happiness through her work, could have had such a miserable life - abuse by her father, a string of bad marriages, and finally Alzheimer's. It was her Alzheimer's that helped to bring the disease to national attention. Princess Yasmin Khan, Hayworth's daughter, has become an internationally known spokeswoman and active fund-raiser to increase awareness and finance research to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease. Besides her glorious presence, Rita had one more gift for the world.