La comedia de la vida

William Powell became exceedingly picky about roles late in his career, so it's a mystery why he chose this one. The guise of a conceited, self-centered has-been movie star gives him no chance to show off his finely honed light comedy style, and his character's conversion to a good sport taxes the talents of even this actor. One of several Hollywood-looks-at-Hollywood mid-budget musicals of the year, it's hampered by 20th Century Fox's relentless self-promotion and too few musical numbers. Even the ones that are there are exceedingly modest, perhaps because Betsy Drake is obviously dubbed and no great shakes as a dancer, either. The feeble screenplay presents her as the answer to the Hollywood musical's prayers, but she comes across as a nice kid who probably shouldn't be in movies. A great Schwartz-Dietz stage score gets trammeled; most of these songs were presented to far better effect a few years hence, in MGM's "The Band Wagon."