Sing Your Worries Away

SING YOUR WORRIES AWAY (1942) is a fun little musical comedy bolstered by a great cast that includes vaudeville comedian Bert Lahr (best remembered as the Cowardly Lion in THE WIZARD OF OZ), eccentric dancer (and future Beverly Hillbilly) Buddy Ebsen, wisecracking sidekick extraordinaire Patsy Kelly, June Havoc (one-time "Baby June", sister of burlesque queen Gypsy Rose Lee), "Thin Man" veteran Sam Levene, tough guy Morgan Conway, and stately Marx Bros. foil Margaret Dumont. The musical numbers are performed with great energy by Alvino Rey and His Orchestra and The King Sisters.

Bert Lahr is pretty funny with his signature shtick, and he and Patsy Kelly make a great pair. Lahr plays a struggling songwriter, with Kelly as the hat-check girl at a swanky night club. Buddy Ebsen gives an enjoyable comedic performance (with only minimal dancing) as the penniless quasi-psychic who comes to the night club to solve a murder, but stays when he becomes enamored with the pretty cigarette girl (Dorothy Lovett). The four become good friends and Lahr and Ebsen team up to promote Lahr's songwriting career. Meanwhile, knife-throwing club owner Sam Levene and his partner Morgan Conway scheme to swipe the family fortune Lahr and Lovett (distant cousins) don't realize they've inherited.

It's fast-paced, lightweight fun but the best thing about this film is June Havoc, who lights up the screen in a delightful comedic performance as Conway's glamorous sticky-fingered girlfriend. She oozes charisma and livens up the proceedings. She's got a beautiful face, which she puts to great use in this film in the name of comedy. She shows she's really got a knack for this kind of material. I've seen Havoc in a handful of other films (like the 1942 version of MY SISTER EILEEN), but I don't recall ever seeing her so animated.