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After starring with Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story (1940) and with Hedy Lamarr in Come Live With Me (1941), Jimmy Stewart was loaned out to United Artists for this musical comedy with Paulette Goddard. Stewart actually sings for the second and last time in his career. According to one Stewart biographer, Jimmy hated this movie more than any other he made, possibly because of his lack of chemistry with the lead actress, but fans have embraced the film as a lot of fun, noting that Jimmy’s voice isn’t half bad. The film’s independent producer was James Roosevelt, the son of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, his first and last effort. The film got mixed reviews, although George Marshal keeps the musical numbers and comedy moving in this pleasant diversion.
Stewart plays James Haskell, a music store clerk in his dad’s business who dreams of making it big playing his harmonica. He and Molly McCorckle, a girl from a local boarding house he falls in love with, conspire to get a small town band on the radio show, “Pot o’ Gold,” which in fact was a real NBC radio program, featuring the same Horace Heidt and His Musical Knights band of the movie. Let’s hear it for product tie-ins. The leads get strong support from Charles Winninger as Stewart’s curmudgeonly uncle who hates music.
The feature will be preceded by a selection of “Soundies” of the same vintage. Released by the Soundies Corp. of America, the soundies were short musical clips (much like MTV), distributed on 16mm. They featured numerous well known bands and singers, but were cheaply produced for a coin-operated “Panoram” film jukeboxes in the 1940s. With a grant from the Grammy Foundation, UCLA Film & Television Archive has preserved a selection of these unique films.
—Jan-Christopher Horak
Directed by George Marshall
Globe Productions, Inc./A George Marshall Production/United Artists Corp. Producer: James Roosevelt. Screenwriter: Walter De Leon. Cinematographer: Hal Mohr, Harry Jackson. With: James Stewart, Paulette Goddard, Charles Winninger, Mary Gordon, Art Carney. 35mm, b/w, 86 mins.
Restored from a 35mm nitrate composite fine grain master positive, multiple nitrate composite reissue prints, and a 16mm print. Laboratory services by The Stanford Theatre Film Laboratory, Audio Mechanics, DJ Audio. Special thanks to: David Shepard.
