broadway_melody_girl

It seems a lot of reviewers have branded this movie as "dated but good"...when in fact it's incredibly ahead of its time.

I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the surrealists cried tears of jealousy when it premiered; the neverending, irreverent gags and complete disregard for time and space leaves avant-garde films like Un Chien Andalou in the dust.

The humour of Hellzapoppin' is not dumb or childish but incredibly smart.

A beautiful, fun, hilarious movie and arguably a proto-postmodern classic

that deserves a reevaluation and wider circulation.

This film is excellent! I don't understand why anyone would call this the "nadir" of Sirk's career, as it is far more intelligent than any of Sirk's famous melodramas. While I enjoy those films, this remains my favorite Sirk picture. The story chronicles the misadventures of pretty rascal turned gentleman thief, Eugene Vidocq, played by the eternal screen cad George Sanders. This is one of Sanders' best caddish roles, as he sidles around chateaux and graveyards, uttering lines such as "sometimes the chains of marriage as so heavy they must be carried by three". In addition to the witty, frothy humour, there is a dark undercurrent to the film that is evidenced in its noirish photography and the amorality of the lead characters. High recommended to fans of Old Hollywood who enjoy the more eclectic films of that period!

The reason is they are horrible. Such is Top of the Town, an ambitious musical from Universal, which, despite stellar production values, never gets off the ground. Most fluffy musical comedies like this one have something resembling a plot, but Top of the Town really doesn't, though it attempts to. There is a dizzy dame type of an heiress (Doris Nolan) who arrives in Manhattan just having come back from Russia and her heart is now supposedly full of the plight of the proletariat. OF COURSE, the best way to help the suffering masses to build a GIGANTIC NIGHTCLUB for the rich and elite only, with musical numbers that convey the pain of the poor! It is far too nonsensical in a bad way to be amusing in the slightest. The heiress has nothing else interesting to her character besides that, she is a run-of-the-mill glamorous blonde who doesn't have one good line to say. George Murphy does his usual song-and-dance-man thing, which is fine, but the rest of the cast is terrible and forgettable. None of the songs in this film have become standards, and it's a good thing, because they are unoriginal and presented badly. The musical number that is meant to bad, "Fireman, Fireman, Save My Child" is the most entertaining of the lot. Everything else was either your usual 30s kitsch done un-charmingly, or incredibly bizarre, like people in blackface wearing light-up costumes with fake gems on them with Mischa Auer being Hamlet in the background...Don't bother seeking this one out. You may think you love 30s musicals, but really, you don't love them this much.