Say One for Me

It's a shame this movie is not available in VHS or DVD. Very good acting by Ray Walston and Debbie Reynolds. Same solid acting and singing from Bing Crosby as he always gives. Why the critics panned this one is beyond me. Robert Wagner displayed very good singing and acting skills in this one and with all due respect to Debbie Reynolds in this one she was "hot". It's also a treat to see a very young Stella Stevens. All in all a good feel good movie. I highly recommend it.

Tacky Twentieth Century-Fox comedy-drama with music (and an eleventh-hour holiday theme) has Robert Wagner miscast as the wolfish manager of a risqué nightclub. He's having trouble conquering new showgirl Debbie Reynolds, a church-going college kid trying to earn enough dough to pay for her father's operation. Bing Crosby plays the local priest who tracks Debbie down ("She said she was working as a secretary!" ... "Find the typewriter!"), only to steal a joke from the floor-show to help out a local comedian. Wan mixture of spiritual uplift and boy-chases-girl nonsense doesn't quite jell, at least not with old-school comedy vet Frank Tashlin at the helm. Tashlin's pacing is lively enough, and he works well with Reynolds, but the combination of prayer with salty backstage personalities trips him up. The picture never finds an appropriate tone, and Crosby--trading his famous Father O'Malley role from "Going My Way" for the lookalike Father Conroy--phones his performance in. ** from ****

I'm sure that during his career in his later years Bing Crosby was offered the chance to repeat playing Father O'Malley as an older priest and at one point that would have been a natural fit for him. Unfortunately after this film, Bing was done with the clergy.

He tries his best with Father Conroy and his best moments are musical ones especially with Debbie Reynolds, but the story is not convincing. Try as I might, I just can't believe that Robert Wagner turns from opportunistic heel to good guy just to win Debbie Reynolds.

In fact the main problem with the movie is Robert Wagner. A good actor he just doesn't have any talent musically. His big number in the movie was You Can't Love Them All was recorded by Dean Martin and had a modest success. Now if Dino had played his part, he might have overcome the script.

Bing's best number is The Secret of Christmas. In addition to recording it for the cast album of this film, six years later he recorded it for Frank Sinatra's Reprise label in a joint Christmas album with Old Blue Eyes and Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians. That is the superior version to the one he did in Say One For Me.

At the time this film was made, there was actually a Catholic parish in the New York theater district (maybe there still is). Since films rarely depict the religious life of theater people, this was a potentially interesting background for a musical comedy-drama. Unfortunately it goes off in many wrong directions. Even Bing Crosby, in his third screen outing as a priest, seems to have lost a lot of his charm and humor. This cleric is much sterner and more sanctimonious than Father O'Malley.

Frank Tashlin directed some good comedies that took irreverent pokes at various 1950's institutions, but I don't think he was the type for the kind of sincere, schmaltzy Christmas fare this movie was apparently supposed to be.

There are some nice moments, some good tunes and performances. If you can lower your expectations, it's not altogether bad entertainment, but it's a shame it wasn't better, given the interesting premise.

The cast that tries to breathe life into the hackneyed show is a pretty good one, with Debbie Reynolds coming off best. Robert Wagner isn't altogether believable as a song and dance man. He's actually surprisingly good in the song numbers. It's just that he's playing someone who should be terrific. (I think the part was intended for Frank Sinatra, early on.) He handles the heel-like tendencies of the role pretty well.

The movie is watchable, relatively entertaining, professionally produced...not a total bomb. The songs are good. So you could do worse.

I have always enjoyed this movie and the songs from it! I always thought of Ray Walston as Uncle Martin, but after viewing this movie many years ago, I have seen him in a new light. Singing and dancing is not one of Robert Wagner's strong points but in this movie he's not bad to look at. It's a shame that the sound track to this movie and others are not available in CD format.