The Knight Is Young

Knight is Young, The (1938)

*** (out of 4)

Pretty good musical stars Hal LeRoy but the main attraction is seeing a young June Allyson getting her start. She plays a wannabe tap dancer who refuses to leave her apartment because she fears her landlord will lock her out since she doesn't have the rent. She spends her time talking to a large billboard across from her window, which includes Sir Galahad. Yes, she speaks to a billboard, which leads to a few musical numbers that are actually pretty good. This Vitaphone short isn't anything too special but Allyson is very lovely and does a fine job here. LeRoy isn't too bad either. On a technical level there's really nothing too special but this does serve as a good time killer.

This is a lame little short from Vitaphone (Warner Brothers) and it's mostly of interest because it stars a young June Allyson--before she became a star with MGM.

The film begins with Hal Le Roy butting up a new billboard and meeting Allyson in the apartment nearby. For pretty much no reason at all, Le Roy breaks into a tap dancing routine. Then, Allyson tells him she cannot leave her apartment because she's behind in the rent. She also tells him she talks to the men in the billboards (showing she might just be schizophrenic). However, he asks her to the sign painter's ball and brings a ladder so she can slip away undetected. Before he gets her, the sign DOES come to life and talks with her! At the ball, the god-awful singer who sang earlier in the film (uggh!!) sings another terrible song and the film ends after Allyson is told she is to be some new model for another billboard (just what every girl dreams of).

All in all, a bizarre and not particularly good film. Watching the film, it makes you a bit amazed that June Allyson EVER became a star based on this silly mess.

"The Knight is Young" is an MGM short of 1938 that accompanied a theater release of a feature film. I saw it on the DVD with MGM's "Best Foot Forward" of 1943. This short is a musical comedy that has some very good talent in the music and dance arenas.

Actor and dancer Hal Le Roy has the lead and does a couple of excellent tap and other dance numbers. The latter one is with a young June Allyson, who's just in her 8th short since beginning her film career the year before. Le Roy had a rather unusual dance style and was very adept at fast tap dancing rotating his feet back and forth behind one another. He made a couple dozen films - all but two by 1940, with two later appearances on TV. Most of his later career was back on the stage on Broadway and elsewhere.

Besides June Allyson, the short has Earlyne Schools as herself. She made only two movies and there's little to be found about her on IMDb or on the Internet. That's surprising because she had a fantastic voice in this film. One song was a classic and she could reach super high notes.

This short is very entertaining with some other dancers and a couple of choreographed numbers with a superbly coordinated dance troupe. There is a short scene that the DVD addresses in a written prologue before the film begins. Warner Brothers notes that the film reflects the culture of the time, but that it wrongly makes a derogatory racial slur.

This is one of many such shorts that MGM and all the major studios made in the 1930s to accompany feature films. Some of these showed little known entertainers of the time who were very talented.

Strictly for nostalgia fans who want to see how pert JUNE ALLYSON got her start. They can watch her in one of several Vitaphone Brevities at Warner Bros. This is the second one I've seen pairing her with ungainly HAL Le ROY, a dancer from the Ray Bolger school of Terpsichore.

The plot is a silly trifle about a daydreaming girl who talks to billboards (yep, that's practically the whole plot), especially since there's a huge one right outside her window of Sir Galahad. He's about to be painted over by a young man on a scaffold. The two engage in conversation, he dances around on the thin plank, she sings a little, he invites her to the Signpainter's Ball, and uses a ladder to get her away from her apartment where she tells him she's trapped because she hasn't paid her rent.

Story ends at the ball, where he does his own daffy bit of dancing and she joins in.

June smiles through it all, does a little singing and dancing (very little), and it's all over in twenty minutes.

Summing up: Only good for a glimpse of early Allyson. Strictly corn, the kind that was abundantly on display in all of these Vitaphone Brevities.

June Allyson was a complete unknown at the time she did this short subject with dancer Hal LeRoy. When they meet she's daydreaming in her room and LeRoy is painting a sign across the street.

Allyson does a little dance and LeRoy breaks out in a soft shoe up on his scaffold Before this ends she's his date to the signpainter's union annual bash.

Some nice numbers, songs that are unknown except for a couple. All packaged quite nicely at Warner Brothers.