She Loves Me Not

Bing Crosby had done one previous film with a college setting in College Humor. In that one he was a music teacher. Now he's on the other side of the classroom as student/composer in She Loves Me Not.

He's about to graduate and get married when a complication in the form of Miriam Hopkins comes into his life. She's fleeing from gangsters who think she's seen a shooting. The doer, Warren Hymer, is hot on her trail. She's a dancer in a nightclub in Philadelphia and she flees abruptly, not even changing her costume. She has just enough money to get to Princeton where she tells her sad tale of woe to Bing. And of course Bing and pal Eddie Nugent take her in.

What follows is a lot of fast paced humor involving Crosby's fiancé, the college administration, a Hollywood publicity man, and the gangsters Hopkins is fleeing from. Along the way Bing makes the acquaintance of Kitty Carlisle who is the daughter of Princeton's Dean of Students played by Henry Stephenson. They sing beautifully together and would do so again in Crosby's next picture, Here Is My Heart.

Songwriting chores were split on this film. Mack Gordon and Harry Revel contributed two songs, Straight from the Shoulder and I'm Humming...I'm Whistling...I'm Singing which were good. But the hit song of the film comes from Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger, Love In Bloom.

1934 was the first year that the best song category was put in the Academy Awards sweepstakes. Bing Crosby with Love In Bloom had the first of 15 nominations, the most by far of any artist introducing an Oscar nominated song. Love In Bloom lost that year to the beautiful music and heavenly rhythm of The Continental.

Love In Bloom served also as the title tune of one of Dixie Lee Crosby's last films before she retired from the screen to raise Bing's first family. But the song finally got a home being heard as the squeaky violin introduction for Jack Benny for almost forty years on radio and television. It became identified with him so much that many people don't know Bing Crosby introduced it as a serious ballad.

Bing and Kitty sing Love In Bloom well together although the main weakness of the plot is that their romance gets a bit sappy at times. It does detract from the comedy.

Nevertheless She Loves Me Not is pretty funny and the inimitable Mr. Crosby is in excellent voice on some excellent tunes.