Despite the folksy title and featuring country and western music legend Ernest Tubb, Jamboree has more in common with a war years Andrews Sister musical than the type of film that the stix so famously nixed a few years earlier. Pretty stock story about bands trying to get their big break on a new radio show, it's actually not too bad, with mostly everybody, both in front of and behind the cameras, behaving competently and avoiding embarrassment. The home front war time setting provides interest with the labor shortage featuring prominently.
Of course this is all about the music and while I was hoping for more from Tubb and the Troubadours he does get a couple of songs in but it's primarily Freddy Fisher and his gag band (think Spike Jones) that get most of the swing era tunes, several of which are pretty good. Ruth Terry is easy on the eyes and the Music Maids provide her with fine accompaniment for their toe tappers. Republic managed to crank out an entertaining if unremarkable little film that must have kept the home front from thinking about the boys overseas for just over an hour.
One intriguing thing is star George Byron. This was apparently his last film, reportedly dying in June, although the circumstances of his death are obscure to say the least. One of those Hollywood mysteries...
