Word: sweete
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...stretches of attempted comedy are broken frequently by the antics of one funny trio who must have written their own routine, the pleasing calisthenics of a large chorus of girls whose beauty was given by God and not Helena Rubenstein, expensive costumes and lighting, and a good measure of sweet notes from the orchestra pit. It's all there but the script; one-quarter of it plus a good script would have made a better product. But, though O'Brien dies a thousand deaths, the show will probably live on, sustained by sheer scope and variety...
...Class a and there are a few big names in the production and direction end. But all this extra expense can't hide the essentially slow and hackneyed character of the plot. It's the old story of the slick Western gambler who falls in love with a sweet young thing from the East. All the customary characters are present, from the honky-tonk girl with a heart of gold who loves the gambler, to the old reprobate who in the end Gives His Life that his daughter will not become What...
Wisconsin-born Raymond Paige was once second fiddle in Grauman's Chinese Theater (Hollywood), became conductor, graduated to movies and radio. Conductor Paige likes sweet tunes, lush arrangements, big orchestras. Says he: "I can do things with eight flutes that you certainly couldn't with one." In 1939 he realized his dream of the biggest, flutiest orchestra ever to play popular music on the air-in 99 Men and a Girl...
Chief reason, as some 15,000 amateur and professional players have discovered, is that the recorder is almost foolproof. Blow into the end of the wooden tube, and out comes sweet, soft, sad music. The recorder is easier to learn, easier on the neighbors, than the piano, fiddle, saxophone, for which ten easy lessons are never quite easy enough. It is decidedly less corny than the mandolin, banjo, accordion. Bach and Handel, and many another before them, wrote fine, easily negotiable recorder tunes...
...poor direction (e.g., composing a hit tune in about two minutes flat), the picture has some lively moments: the dead-pan vocalizing of frightened Virginia O'Brien, the up-from-the-jungle hoofing of the Berry Brothers, and the nostalgia of the old sweet Gershwin songs...