Something for the Boys

As is the usual case with Cole Porter shows, they never arrive intact to the big screen. In the case of Something For The Boys only the title song at the very beginning of the film and sung by Vivian Blaine is kept in the score.

Vivian Blaine has the part that Ethel Merman played on stage for the 422 performance Broadway run. She is one of three disparate cousins who inherit a rundown old southern mansion that saw its best days during the run of the Confederate States Of America. The other cousins are Carmen Miranda and Phil Silvers. Their grandfather must have led an interesting life. While they're deciding what to do with the dilapidated house, their savior comes in the person of Sergeant Michael O'Shea. In a character obviously based on Glenn Miller, O'Shea is a bandleader drafted into the army and he hits upon the idea of converting the mansion into a guest house for army wives. And in the tradition of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland they decide to put on a show to raise the needed capital to fix the house up.

The rest of the score is composed by Jimmy McHugh and Harold Adamson and truly nothing memorable comes from it. Perry Como plays a small part and only sings. He never really clicked as a film star.

Romantic complications ensue when Sheila Ryan shows up also and she and O'Shea were an item before the war. Ryan is one of those southern belles dripping with honeysuckle and acid.

And of course we've got Carmen Miranda and that's always a treat.

Despite the emasculation of the Cole Porter score, Something For The Boys is pleasant enough entertainment about three cousins doing their bit for the war effort.