A delightful and nostalgic return to the fun-filled pre-WWI days of vaudeville. Jo Hayden (Garland) troops the boards with Jimmy Metcalf (Murphy), Sid Simms (Blue), and Lily Duncan (Norman). Though she loves the hardscrabble life of the stage, Jo's main career motive is to send her kid
brother (Quine) to medical school. When smoothie Harry Palmer (Kelly) advises Jo that she could do much better in his song-and-dance act, she, with Jimmy's blessing, teams up with him. They struggle along for two years; meanwhile, Jimmy and Sid hit the big time. Harry, meanwhile, becomes
infatuated with a singing star (Eggerth), even though Jo is the one who truly loves him. When WWI threatens to halt his burgeoning success, Harry compounds his sins by dodging the draft, causing Jo to leave him--until he redeems himself in heroic style.
The story is pure hokum, but this warm film is more than buoyed by the many old tunes and the superb production numbers--staged, surprisingly, not by specialist Berkeley, who directed, but by Bobby Connolly. The dynamic Kelly, in his film debut, exhibits star quality in spades, while at the same
time hinting at the darker side to his persona in the scene where he maims his hand to avoid the draft. He and Garland play beautifully off each other, and of course their performance of the title standard is a highlight of the film. leave a comment
