La cousine d'Amérique

I like a lot of the older movies, including B movies and less than stellar musicals. While this one had the Scottish scenery going for it, that's about all as far as I am concerned. Tried to go it, but just couldn't. Too many "ouchies." Vera-Ellen, while good in other things, was a bit painful to watch in this. Same for Tony Martin. The redhead was, to me, hard on the eyes and nerves. The lord character was lackluster.

Surprised at the comments of other reviewers that Cyd Charise should have had the female lead. Good grief. Get some proportion. While Tony Martin was married to Cyd Charise, there is a huge difference in their movie presence and draw. They don't cast parts to be cutesy.

Ms. Charise played and co-starred with major stars in top films. Mr. Martin never did. There's no comparison. This was way too low a production for Ms. Charise. While Mr. Martin enjoyed success as a recording artist, a strong actor, he wasn't. I didn't even care for his singing in this. Forget the acting, on anyone's part.

Definitely give this one a pass - as in pass up. Good performances can override a bad script/plot. That didn't happen here.

Let's Be Happy is a musical film shot in Scotland by a British film company and released in America under the Allied Artist banner. It also has two American stars, Tony Martin and Vera-Ellen and both made their final big screen appearance in this production. Musicals were certainly becoming rarer and rarer on the screen by 1957.

If people have followed my reviews on Tony Martin's films, one my criticisms is why he was never teamed with his wife Cyd Charisse in any movie. Cyd was under contract to MGM and Tony did occasional films there as well. Both would move on to the nightclub phase of their careers as their primary venue and they were one of the biggest acts on that circuit for many years. I think Let's Be Happy was created with both of them in mind, but apparently Cyd was otherwise occupied with work at MGM. She did do Silk Stockings that same year over at that much bigger studio. So Vera-Ellen was brought in instead.

The story is a slight one and the songs by Nicholas Brodszky and Paul Francis Webster are pretty forgettable, but they're done well as sang by Tony and danced to by Vera-Ellen. She's a Vermont farm girl who gets an inheritance from her grandfather of $5000.00 approximately, kept in a secret compartment because apparently grandfather did not trust banks. And as a good Scots girl, she decides to visit the old country.

She meets Tony on the plane and the two seem to hit it off. But along the way an impoverished title played by Robert Flemyng gets the idea that Vera-Ellen is really loaded and in the tradition of European nobility down on its luck, they woo the rich American.

Let's Be Happy does boast some really nice cinematography of Edinburgh, a city which definitely believes in keeping its ancient look up for the tourists. It's a pleasant enough 90+ minutes of entertainment, but I do so wish Tony Martin had done this with Cyd Charisse.

An independent feature made at the very, very end of the movie musical's golden age, and the desperation shows. Vera-Ellen, looking unhealthily slim and not dancing much, is a Vermont lass who inherits enough money to fly to Edinburgh, where she keeps running into Tony Martin and is wooed by impoverished lord Robert Flemyng. Martin, looking beefy and well past his leading-man prime, sings everywhere--at airport customs, in a Scottish dining car, at Vera's Vermont bungalow--and the songs, by Nicholas Brodzky and Paul Francis Webster, are neatly integrated enough but not what you'd call exciting. Nor is Henry Levin's direction, and even the Edinburgh location shooting looks rather skimpy. Wan storytelling, no-name supporting cast, so-so songs… No wonder it didn't do well.

"Let's Be Happy" is a 1957 musical starring Vera-Ellen, Tony Martin, and Robert Flemyng.

It concerns a young woman left some money who decides it to spend it on a trip to the city of her ancestors, Edinburgh, and have an adventure. She meets an attractive salesman (Martin) and an impoverished Lord (Flemyng), whom she takes up with when she thinks the salesman has been dishonest with her.

I watched this film because I love Tony Martin's voice, but to be honest, a chimpanzee could have performed these songs.

Vera-Ellen was a pretty woman, but she wasn't much of an actress, and she doesn't look particularly well here except in one scene, where she wears a beautiful, form-fitting blue gown and looks stunning. Also, for a dancer, she sure didn't do much of it.

The music ranged from awful to merely passable.

The location shots were lovely.

I was surprised this film was made. It is very mediocre.

Vera-Ellen presumably enjoyed the trip to Britain six years years earlier to make 'Happy-Go-Lovely' since she returned to make a second musical remake in Technicolor of an old British film - also set in Edinburgh - for producer Marcel Hellman, again with a director and male lead imported from Hollywood. (Since she promptly retired upon completing it doesn't suggest she cared much for the final result.)

Only the British supporting cast (including a few authentic Scots) and actual shots of Vera-Ellen in Paris and Edinburgh - as well as the rather drab look of the piece overall - confirm that it was indeed made in Britain since it remains largely studio-bound; while the musical numbers are stagy and look shoe-horned into the film.

The annoying, ever-present incidental music by Nicholas Brodsky is at least the subject of one nice little joke on the soundtrack. While the rare opportunity it furnishes to see Zena Marshall in Technicolor is sadly compromised by the fact that they've made her a harshly made-up brassy redhead on the make.