O Rouxinol Mentiroso

A huge hit for MGM and Kathryn Grayson, the black-and-white film features a lot of classical music, Liszt and Wagner among others, with Jimmy Durante for comic relief. The always fresh-as-a-daisy June Allyson plays the other sister and balances Grayson's rebellious side, as she defies her puritanical family and shows her limbs on a turn-of-the-century vaudeville stage. Grayson has never been funnier than when she is disrupting the opera sequence from "Lohengrin" as the great Lauritz Melchior fumes his way through the aria. Musicals of this period may not be profound, but they are still a lot of fun to watch, especially when Melchior's dog hears "his master's voice" in a recreation of the earliest recording session. --from Musicals on the Silver Screen, American Library Association, 2013