roark183

This is one of those musicals, common in the 1930s & 40s, that was more of a display of orchestras than for plot development. In the 1930s & 40s many musicals were created for the purpose of displaying some famous orchestra. Such musicals showed little plot development. This is one such musical.

Charlotte Greenwood is given the opportunity several times to show her extraordinary ability for high kicking, but it was out of place with regard to the overall plot.

An excessive amount of time is given to Harry James and his orchestra. Harry James' character is totally inconsequential to the plot.

Helen Forrest sings a number that takes up several minutes, but does not appear in the film at any other time.

What plot development there is, is fairly interesting as Vicky Lane & Dan Christy jump in and our of love for each other, as other romantic relationships develop as well.

This film is a classic example of an ignorant public being drawn to a bad film because of all the hype the studio put out saying what a great film it would be.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire are fine actors and demonstrate their fine acting ability here. But the plot of this film is shallow and pointless. It's the screen writers, Baz Luhrmann & Craig Pearce, that failed in this film. The film has no excitement, nothing that the plot leads toward for the viewer to look forward to. I have not read the book, so I have no idea how the film follows the book. But it makes no difference, because this film has no entertainment value.

Yet, the public has bought into the studio hype that this is a great film and is giving it high ratings. It's amazing how a robotic, shallow public will be so easily entertained with such a mundane story. The studio really can make a film appear great to a shallow minded public, if they put enough money into the advertising, as they have for this film.