The I Don't Care Girl

The musical comedy biopic gets the Rashomon treatment in this faked-up biopic of Eva Tanguay, one of the great stars of turn-of-the-century vaudeville. Mitzi Gaynor, as always, gives a great performance and it's a pity that, with the exception of the movie version of SOUTH PACIFIC, she was always Fox's B musical star, doing whatever they gave her. The musical numbers are all overdone, as if choreographer Jack Cole is mocking the form; the semi-strip-tease to jazzed up Mozart (I'm not making this up! It's the most out-of-place dance number outside of Sally Forrest's weird one in EXCUSE MY DUST) and other numbers that recall LADY IN THE DARK -- all very modern for the era and absolutely bizarre in context.

Oscar Levant plays the piano magnificently a few times and David Wayne gives a typically graceful performance in support.

...why Mitzi Gaynor, certainly one of the most talented ladies in the business, never became a major movie star. here's your answer: too many movies like this. Taking a RASHAMON approach to the life of Eva Tanguay is certainly a novel idea, but right from the start post-production butchery is all too obvious and the remaining seventy-nine minutes make little or no sense what so ever. I truly believe someone was trying to do poor Miss Gaynor in with this one. Characters appear and disappear randomly, the score is mediocre at best, and the production numbers - where Miss Gaynor should really shine - are executed in such a sloppy, slap-dash way that it is hard to believe this film was released by a major studio. Gaynor shines during the first rendition of "I Don't Care" which is done in true (movie) vaudeville style and gives some glimpse of what the real Miss Tanguay must have been like as a performer, but the other numbers (I suppose those conceived by Jack Cole)are a mess, totally out of period, including a hep cat version of the title tune that has Mitzi dancing in a chug-chug style that does nothing to display her very real dancing talent. During this number her two male co-stars keep turning up in different guises long after one of them has left the story. Huh? Looking at a quartet of films (this mess, THE BLOODHOUNDS OF Broadway, DOWN AMONG THE SHELTERING PALMS, and GOLDEN GIRL) designed to make Miss Gaynor a star, one wonders what the powers that be were thinking. No wonder Marilyn arrived on the scene shortly there after and staked out the Fox lot for herself!

In spite of its imperfections, the film contains one of the most inspiring performances of any song in any film. Mitzi Gaynor becomes Eva Tanguay, insists on coming out into the audience, hits a star quality personality in the song "I don't care" when she sings - "Let down the gangway, for I'm Eva Tanguay, and I - DON'T - CARE!!!" I have tried to find this on DVD, but it does not exist. CAn someone get this changed??? Does it exist on CD or MP3 anywhere? I believe that Judy Garland sang the song in the film "Good Old Summertime" but I can't find that either. I have been remembering this song for over fifty years now, which shows how memorable it is. Not many songs have this power to impress itself on the memory, and it is only because of the great performance of Mitzi Gaynor, who is apparently still going today with live performances!

What could have been a potentially interesting glimpse at a talent that has receded in the public memory is instead a garish collection of disconnected scenes.

To start the framing device of having George Jessel mounting a biography of Eva Tanguay is a wasted and contrived waste of time and should have been scuttled. Then the story such as it is tells you nothing of the real Miss Tanguay.

Mitzi is a talented girl, an excellent dancer and pleasing personality but she is given little too work with but she does wear feathers well. None of the male actors are given characters that make any sense. At least Oscar Levant gives his patented amusingly dry performance and gets a spotlight piano number which is the best thing in the movie. The leading man Bob Graham playing the fictitious Larry Woods is so bland he practically evaporates from the screen and makes no impact in the picture at all.

If you like flashy production numbers, staged by the legendary Jack Cole, than this has plenty to enjoy but if you want narrative structure along with them you won't find that here.

What could have been a very good musical ends up being bunch of mixed up scenes that make no sense whatsoever. Fox had a good idea with the material, but somehow botched it up. A good vehicle for poor Mitzi Gaynor, and she must have very dismayed with what ended up on the screen.

Fox Archives has released this recently along with other older films. Too bad they couldn't include the missing footage as it's very obvious scenes and details to the plot were left out on the 'cutting room floor', so to speak. The musical numbers, for the most part, are very good to excellent, even though they do not belong in the time element of the story. One very strange number, the second I DON'T CARE sequence, has Mizi changing costumes RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ACT, and a character that was long gone, back in the scene. I'm sure this number was supposed to be a 'dream sequence', that would be the only reasonable explanation!!!! What did Mr. Zanack have in mind when he edited this film??? I know he was responsible for all editing of films under his regime. He also ruined the fabulous MM movie, NIAGARA along with sever cuts to THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS. And he was supposed to be a 'movie' person? I think not.