La loca aventura

In spite of its imperfections, the film contains one of the most inspiring performances of any song in any film. Mitzi Gaynor becomes Eva Tanguay, insists on coming out into the audience, hits a star quality personality in the song "I don't care" when she sings - "Let down the gangway, for I'm Eva Tanguay, and I - DON'T - CARE!!!" I have tried to find this on DVD, but it does not exist. CAn someone get this changed??? Does it exist on CD or MP3 anywhere? I believe that Judy Garland sang the song in the film "Good Old Summertime" but I can't find that either. I have been remembering this song for over fifty years now, which shows how memorable it is. Not many songs have this power to impress itself on the memory, and it is only because of the great performance of Mitzi Gaynor, who is apparently still going today with live performances!

I understand that The I Don't Care Girl was severely cut by Daryl F Zannuck which was his usual practice, despite this Mitzi showed what a Great talent she was, unlike other great female dancers of the time Mitzi was set apart because she had personality, I also think Mitzi was at the wrong studio and totally wasted in Hollywood, although she was'nt wasted in Las Vegas where she was the top box office star for years, and later her great tv shows.

What could have been a potentially interesting glimpse at a talent that has receded in the public memory is instead a garish collection of disconnected scenes.

To start the framing device of having George Jessel mounting a biography of Eva Tanguay is a wasted and contrived waste of time and should have been scuttled. Then the story such as it is tells you nothing of the real Miss Tanguay.

Mitzi is a talented girl, an excellent dancer and pleasing personality but she is given little too work with but she does wear feathers well. None of the male actors are given characters that make any sense. At least Oscar Levant gives his patented amusingly dry performance and gets a spotlight piano number which is the best thing in the movie. The leading man Bob Graham playing the fictitious Larry Woods is so bland he practically evaporates from the screen and makes no impact in the picture at all.

If you like flashy production numbers, staged by the legendary Jack Cole, than this has plenty to enjoy but if you want narrative structure along with them you won't find that here.

What could have been a very good musical ends up being bunch of mixed up scenes that make no sense whatsoever. Fox had a good idea with the material, but somehow botched it up. A good vehicle for poor Mitzi Gaynor, and she must have very dismayed with what ended up on the screen.

Fox Archives has released this recently along with other older films. Too bad they couldn't include the missing footage as it's very obvious scenes and details to the plot were left out on the 'cutting room floor', so to speak. The musical numbers, for the most part, are very good to excellent, even though they do not belong in the time element of the story. One very strange number, the second I DON'T CARE sequence, has Mizi changing costumes RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ACT, and a character that was long gone, back in the scene. I'm sure this number was supposed to be a 'dream sequence', that would be the only reasonable explanation!!!! What did Mr. Zanack have in mind when he edited this film??? I know he was responsible for all editing of films under his regime. He also ruined the fabulous MM movie, NIAGARA along with sever cuts to THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS. And he was supposed to be a 'movie' person? I think not.

It's a great pity but "The I Don't Care Girl" was indeed severely cut. Scenes and numbers were shuffled, scenes and numbers ended up on the cutting-room floor, scenes were re-filmed, Jack Cole was brought in (and even his 'I Don't Care' and 'Beale Street Blues' traded places so that the one designed to end the film, didn't, and the other one, with its scene to follow, did), until what was released (in 1953, rather than 1952) was the hodge-podge you see today. Yet despite all of the butchery the multi-talented Mitzi sets the screen on fire whenever she appears, whether it's in a dramatic scene or dazzling her way through those Cole-choreographed production numbers. Sadly we'll never see the complete version, or those cut numbers. Drat!