This movie has lots to enjoy - great wartime entertainment by some of the big names in music at that time, good if recycled comedy, and great dancing by Eleanor Powell. However, its main problem is all of what I just mentioned. It can never seem to figure out if it is a romantic comedy, a musical, or a movie about wartime sabotage, but it does grow on you.
The comedy is mainly recycled from Buster Keaton's last silent film, "Spite Marriage", and in fact Buster was a gag writer on this film and most of Red's other movies for MGM. Here Red Skelton plays Joe Reynolds, reprising Buster's part as a worker in a laundry enamored with stage actress Constance Shaw (Eleanor Powell). He manages to show up at the same places Shaw shows up at by borrowing his customers' formal attire. Just like in the original, the leading lady is jealous of her leading man because he is romancing someone else - a potential backer for a show. Shaw marries Joe without knowing or caring what he does for a living, and there is the repeat of the "putting the unconscious bride to bed" scene that there was in Spite Marriage. When the day after the wedding she learns he does not in fact own gold mines but is a "pants presser" the newlyweds separate, at least for awhile. The situation in which Joe plays the hero here has to do with a plan to blow up a munitions storehouse next door to the theater where Constance Shaw is working. "Spite Marriage" had seafaring bootlegging gangsters as villains, which, of course, would have made no sense in 1943.
There are some great numbers by Powell if you are a fan of her dancing - I am. The disappointing part is that a couple of the numbers are lifted from other films. The finale is lifted from 1936's "Born To Dance" and there is another number that was shot for the film "Honolulu". Part of the reason for this is that the lasso number towards the beginning of the film was so difficult that Miss Powell knocked herself unconscious while performing it, and thus other numbers were substituted for the originals planned.
Finally there are some great musical numbers by the Dorseys and "Jericho" performed by Lena Horne.
The comedy is mainly recycled from Buster Keaton's last silent film, "Spite Marriage", and in fact Buster was a gag writer on this film and most of Red's other movies for MGM. Here Red Skelton plays Joe Reynolds, reprising Buster's part as a worker in a laundry enamored with stage actress Constance Shaw (Eleanor Powell). He manages to show up at the same places Shaw shows up at by borrowing his customers' formal attire. Just like in the original, the leading lady is jealous of her leading man because he is romancing someone else - a potential backer for a show. Shaw marries Joe without knowing or caring what he does for a living, and there is the repeat of the "putting the unconscious bride to bed" scene that there was in Spite Marriage. When the day after the wedding she learns he does not in fact own gold mines but is a "pants presser" the newlyweds separate, at least for awhile. The situation in which Joe plays the hero here has to do with a plan to blow up a munitions storehouse next door to the theater where Constance Shaw is working. "Spite Marriage" had seafaring bootlegging gangsters as villains, which, of course, would have made no sense in 1943.
There are some great numbers by Powell if you are a fan of her dancing - I am. The disappointing part is that a couple of the numbers are lifted from other films. The finale is lifted from 1936's "Born To Dance" and there is another number that was shot for the film "Honolulu". Part of the reason for this is that the lasso number towards the beginning of the film was so difficult that Miss Powell knocked herself unconscious while performing it, and thus other numbers were substituted for the originals planned.
Finally there are some great musical numbers by the Dorseys and "Jericho" performed by Lena Horne.