There are plenty of amiable performances in GREENWICH VILLAGE, all involved in making the most of a very light script about struggling singers and songwriters and producers in the Greenwich Village of the 1920s. But it's strictly fluff--an excuse for some bright song and dance routines with CARMEN MIRANDA stealing the spotlight.
WILLIAM BENDIX is the producer of a night club revue who needs more money to put on a show. DON AMECHE is a man they think is a rich guy because he has a $100 bill when he pays for his fortune from Miranda who charges $5 for a reading. Bendix and his gang hang onto Ameche and he soon gets involved with the songstress of the revue, VIVIAN BLAINE.
Blaine came along at a time when Fox needed a back-up for their temperamental Alice Faye and Betty Grable, who were fed up with doing musicals like this and insisted on better scripts. Unfortunately for Blaine, although she's got natural charm and photographs beautifully, this film didn't do it for her. She had a few more roles in Fox musicals but she had to wait until she found better material on the Broadway stage in GUYS AND DOLLS.
Songwriter Betty Comden can be seen as a hatcheck girl who performs in one of the revue numbers. Judy Holliday's scene was cut from the revue but she does appear briefly as an extra in another party scene.
It's got all the Technicolor trimmings one usually gets in these gaudy Fox musicals--and there's a terrific song and dance number by the Four Step Brothers.
Not really bad as far as these backstage musicals go, but very little invention involved in the script which is strictly a by-the-numbers sort of thing. Don Ameche is as pleasant as ever as Blaine's leading man.
