Honolulu

It's the kind of fluffy production big-budget MGM excelled at. Actor Young gets dual parts, one as a heart-throb celebrity, the other as an average Smith living in Hawaii. To escape pressures, each is anxious to trade places with his look-alike twin. So heart-throb Mason goes to Honolulu while Smith goes to New York. Trouble is this reciprocal move pairs each with his look-alike's girl, so complications ensue.

Actually, the plot line is heavier than usual for a musical. Nonetheless, director Buzzell keeps things moving. As expected, Powell shows off her flying feet, while I especially like that first number on shipboard that's quite beguiling. However, it's Gracie Allen who steals the show with her shrill comic antics. However, she's got only one skit with under-used husband George Burns that comes at movie's end almost like it's an add-on for George's sake. Also. don't look for popular tunes among the musical selections, after all it's the dancing feet here that's central. There's some flavor of tropical Hawaii with two hula-type dance numbers, otherwise there's not much location scenery. Typical of the time period is the racially stereotyped humor from Willie Fung and Rochchester Anderson, who, whatever else, are adept comedians. All in all, the movie's a crisply done, well-mounted showcase for Powell, Allen, and Young, but nothing special.

(In passing- for old movie fans, especially of the noir classic Detour {1947}, look for notorious Hollywood bad boy Tom Neal as an ambulance attendant with one brief line.)

This B musical (still available only on VHS) has four things in it worth looking at today: the big "Leader Doesn't Like Music" vaudeville number with singing Marx Brothers impersonators and Gracie Allen got up as Mae West; and Powell's three dance numbers. The first shows off Powell's ability to tap while skipping rope. The second, a blackface tribute to Bill Robinson, would be cornball if Powell weren't so good. The third, a long hula in two acts, isn't Powell's best number but it seems better suited to her big athletic style than her dressy nightclub-style numbers. For once she is not dressed like the mailman, and it's possible to see the unbelievable condition she was in at that time as well as the speed and power of her movements. Fred Astaire surely saw this film while the preparations were underway to make "Broadway Melody of 1940", which teamed him with Powell (or rather, the other way around). No wonder he was scared.

Robert Young plays a movie star who meets his lookalike, a rich Hawaiian plantation owner. So the two decide to swap places for awhile Parent Trap-style. The rich guy finds out to his chagrin what life is like for a big celebrity. The movie star meanwhile meets and falls in love with a pretty dancer (Eleanor Powell). All of the expected chaos ensues. It seems to me this plot would have been more interesting had both guys not been rich, successful types. The non-celebrity guy should have been a regular Joe, not some rich plantation owner. As it is, this part of the film is not that fun.

Robert Young does fine but Eleanor Powell, with her million-dollar smile and awesome dance routines, is the best part of the film. Her jump rope number will make an instant fan out of anybody. The sexy hula dance is justifiably a classic. Those hips! Those legs! George Burns and Gracie Allen are the comic relief but, as was often the case, Gracie is an acquired taste. She's funny but is a little bit much at times.

Cameo at the start of the film from Ruth Hussey. One of Gracie's musical numbers bizarrely features Marx Bros. imitators and ends with Powell in blackface! If you're a big fan of Young's, I'm sure you will appreciate his performance. Everybody else should check it out for Eleanor Powell's dancing.

While Burns and Allen only appear together briefly in one scene, Gracie Allen holds her own quite well playing the "dumb dora" that Burns and Allen fans know and love. The most memorable scene is a musical number with Marx Brothers impersonators (with TWO Grouchos!)

Burns&Allen's last film as a team was Honolulu where they supported Robert Young and Eleanor Powell. Gracie did two more guest star appearances in film while George would wait over 30 years to go back in The Sunshine Boys which netted him an Oscar. Oddly enough their characters do not have any scenes together until the very end of the movie, almost as if they were trying their separate wings.

Honolulu was the start of a winding down of a vogue for south seas movies that started over at Paramount with Dorothy Lamour and her sarong and with Bing Crosby's Waikiki Wedding celebrating a trip to Hawaii Bing took in real life. MGM wasn't going to let Paramount get all the tropical box office.

Robert Young plays a dual role as both a movie star and a visiting planter from Hawaii. Young trying to escape the constant demands of his adoring public offers to switch places with his lookalike. But he gets into all kinds of complications on the ship to Hawaii when he meets Eleanor Powell on board. He falls for her, but the planter, now miserably cooped up in his hotel room because he can't get out in public is engaged to Rita Johnson, daughter of another planter Clarence Kolb back on Oahu.

Let's just say that with two Robert Youngs there was enough to go around by the time Honolulu was over with a few bumps along the way.

No memorable songs came out of Honolulu, but Eleanor Powell had some great numbers including a hula tap dance. She seems to have invented her own dance genre because I've never seen anything like it before or since. The production values are also a little skimpy for an MGM musical.

But with Eleanor dancing and George and Gracie doing their thing Honolulu holds up very nicely for over 70 years.