Mademoiselle Porte-bonheur

I thought LUCKY ME from Warner Bros in 1954 was not the first Cinemascope musical as some comment says.. possibly the 1953 FOX musical ? HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE. Fox patented Cinemascope and hired the process to other studios. The first WBs musical was A STAR IS BORN. But I might be wrong... anyone?

On my Australian market DVD this really silly Doris Day musical has opening credits in cinemascope and the rest of he film in ..horror of horrors! pan and scan TV presentation. On the box it says hooray for Cinemascope but the film itself is not in Cinemascope if anyone from WB DVD office bothers to check. The color and art design is terrific, the musical numbers well staged (as I could tell, as I only saw half of the image), the 50s style and modernity snazzy and Doris Day was beautiful. Its trite script is embarrassing ... a bit like any of the Columbia musicals with Jack Lemmon or Betty Grable of the same year. I was keen to enjoy but the badly presented cropping, down to TV from cinemascope ruined the experience... so I took the DVD back to the store, complained to the bemused 19 year old goth chick behind the counter and got a refund. She seemed to spark to life when I pretended to be interested in a box set of BUFFY Vampire Slayer, but I tricked her and took the money instead.

Fairly expensive Warners musical, the then-novelties of which are a) CinemaScope and b) location filming in Miami, which does look '50s-luscious. These are tied to a very tired screenplay about superstitious Doris Day and her pals Phil Silvers, Nancy Walker, and Eddie Foy Jr. going from revue work to kitchen work to Broadway, courtesy of songwriter Robert Cummings, whose songs all sound like second-rate Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster. Much talent that had just turned out "Calamity Jane"--Day, Webster, Fain, choreographer (and here director) Jack Donohue, screenwriter James O'Hanlon--worked on this one, but it's nobody's best work, though Doris is as spirited and golden-voiced as ever, and you don't really want to see her end up romantically with someone as uninteresting as Robert Cummings. Silvers and Walker certainly deserved better material, and Donohue doesn't know how to pace a plot, even one as fragile as this. Martha Hyer is another casualty, overplaying Cummings' shrew of a girlfriend, and the other supporting players are no-name. It's worth sitting through once for a couple of nicely staged numbers (especially the opening) and some alluring glimpses of Florida, but it's the Warners musical at its most labored and uninspired.

Candy (Doris Day) and her friends are all talented but out of work stage performers. Because they can't find work, they all get jobs at a local hotel bussing tables and working as dish washers. However, they haven't given up on their show biz dreams and they want more than anything else to meet with a famous Broadway showman, Dick Carson (Bob Cummings), to show him their skills. But again and again their attempts are thwarted. Oddly enough, when Candy accidentally meets Dick, he doesn't tell her who she is and they fall in love. But when she realizes that he's been lying about who he is, they break up. In fact, again and again, the pair seem to have breakups only to quickly reunite...to the point where it sure felt predictable.

Despite the predictable and cliched plot, the film had some very nice song and dance numbers. It was catchy and enjoyable....and also a bit brainless. In other words, if you think too much about the plot, you cannot enjoy the film. My recommendation is that you turn off your brain and just enjoy.

The first time I saw this film I was distracted for a few minutes and missed the intro credits. Being in a lazy mood I just sat down to watch and if it hadn't been for the setting (Miami) and the star (Doris), I'd have sworn this were one of the early MGM CinemaScope films, since someone was obviously emulating a certain kind of Arthur Freed approach. But while elaborate visually at times, no, it was Warner Bros., but for what it was, not bad. In fact, the only real debit I can make against LUCKY ME remains its very conventional and predictable plot conventions. That, and the one-note roles of Phil Silvers (a ham) and Robert Cummings (handsome but bland nice guy). Songs? Okay, nothing special, perhaps, but serviceable. So for anyone who simply wants an old, spiffy if brainless musical, they still can't go wrong here, even if someone like Howard Keel might have brought more to the Cummings role (for better and worse).

As for the film process itself, did this film really need such elaboration? Probably not, but Scope does continue to lend it a certain novelty.

LUCKY ME is a prettily Technicolored musical outing from Warner Bros., one that DORIS DAY was obligated to make because of arrangements made by her producer hubby. She should have stuck to her guns and refused to do the film, which doesn't do much for anyone--including its talented supporting cast--ROBERT CUMMINGS, PHIL SILVERS, NANCY WALKER, MARTHA HYER and EDDIE FOY, JR.

Day is the singer in a team of stranded players working in the kitchen of a fancy Miami hotel because of a prank played by the obnoxious PHIL SILVERS, whose strident comedy technique is overworked here.

When ROBERT CUMMINGS needs a singer for his upcoming Broadway show, he discovers Doris can sing and from then on he and his girlfriend (MARTHA HYER) squabble over her dad's backing for the show and his interest in Doris. That's all there is to the plot.

Songs by Sammy Fain and Paul Webster have been tacked onto this slight story with less than impressive results. Only one ballad--done as a dream sequence--has any real worth and it's a beauty called "I Speak to the Stars" which is the only genuine first class song in the movie. A catchy first number, "The Superstition Song," at least gets some interest for the way Doris Day manages to sing it through a lengthy opening sequence.

If you're a Doris Day completist and must see all her films--well, that's the only reason for catching up with this one. It's a dud--a real dud. Trite and unfunny as can be.