User reviews

Rita Hayworth is an American performer during the blitz in "Tonight and Every Night." The film is based on the true story of a theater that kept going during the horrific bombings London suffered, unlike other theaters, which closed their doors. In the film, a photographer from Life arrives to do a feature about the theater and hears a story about Rita and friends from a stagehand.

What a gorgeous woman and dancer Rita was, and what charisma! She sparkles on the screen and is stunningly beautiful in this Technicolor film. She looks like her magazine covers - perfect. Lee Bowman is her leading man, Janet Blair plays her best friend, and Marc Platt, a Broadway dancer who is an absolute dynamo, plays a fellow performer.

There really isn't much to this script, except that there's a somewhat unexpected plot twist and the ending isn't as expected. We're looking in one direction while the script goes in another. There are some nifty production numbers and some pretty songs - better, I think, than those found in another Hayworth vehicle, Down to Earth.

Rita's voice is always dubbed, but I wonder if she could sing or could have sung with some training. Guess we'll never know.

Seeing Rita is always worth it.

This was the first movie where Rita Hayworth was given credit above the title. It's also the film she did before "Gilda", which would be her triumph. "Tonight and Every Night" is a product of the Hollywood of the late forties, when war themes were not that common. Directed by Victor Saville, the film has some good moments and as Neil Doyle has pointed out in these pages, if you're a fan of Ms. Hayworth, this is a must see! Not that it's one of the best things she ever did on the screen, but it's a good way to spend an evening in good company.

The story is based on a theater in London that never stopped operating, even in the worst days of the blitz. It's to the credit of the woman who ran the venue, May Tolliver, that she wanted to keep some sense of sanity when Londoners were going through such a rough time.

Rita Hayworth looks lovely dressed by Jean Louis. Lee Bowman plays her love interest, Paul Lindy. We also see Janet Blair, Marc Platt and Florence Bates in supporting roles. Jules Stein's music is not the kind that one keeps repeating after viewing the film.

The only thing that hasn't kept well is the Technicolor. The copy we saw recently has not aged well as it shows different skin tones in Ms. Hayworth.

Watch it, if only to get a glimpse at the lovely Rita Hayworth!

The movie's number one sex symbol carried a lot of films to box office success on the strength of her looks and personality. But Rita Hayworth was definitely asked to tote a lot in Tonight And Every Night, a film set during the air attacks on London about a theater that never missed a performance. There was actually such a theater as the Windmill.

A whole lot of extravagant musical numbers photographed in gorgeous technicolor are held together by a plot involving Rita being the object of a campaign by Eagle Squadron RAF member Lee Bowman. Though she's warned by fellow performer and best friend Janet Blair that Bowman's a wolf in Eagle Squadron uniform, Rita plunges headlong into things. She's also got dancer Marc Platt interested in her as well.

For a British set film, this cast sure had an awful lot of Americans. This film would have been so much better done across the pond with someone like Jessie Matthews or Anna Neagle starring. The numbers are nice enough though, the musical score by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn contained one song, Anywhere which got an Oscar nomination. A much better song of their's that Frank Sinatra sung in Anchors Aweigh, I Fall In Love Too Easily, was also nominated that year, but Rodgers and Hammerstein got the statue that year for It Might As Well Be Spring. Tonight And Every Night also got an Oscar nomination for Best Musical Scoring.

The musical numbers are great, but the plot is pretty thin.

This is an interesting film that was made by Columbia Pictures in the U. S. while World War II was underway. It is set in London with a Life Magazine photographer behind the stage at the Cumberland Theater. The year is 1945, and the story is told in flashback to the start of the war and the German bombing of London. The photographer was there to do a feature story on the English theater that wouldn't close, but would keep putting on its shows during the blitz.

While this story is a fictional, it was adapted from a play that was based on the real Windmill Theatre that put on its shows every night during the blitz. It was the only theatre in London to do so.

The plot is a good one, with a romance that builds over time with one of the show's lead performers, Rosalind Bruce and an RAF pilot and squadron leader, Paul Lundy. Rita Hayworth plays Bruce, and she and Janet Blair as Jud Kane and Marc Platt as Tommy Lawson have some very good song and dance numbers.

Florence Bates plays May Tolliver, the theater producer and boss who keeps the show going. When the sirens sound to warn of an oncoming bombing, the cast, crew and audience all go through the side and backstage doors into the air raid shelter beneath the theater. Some prominent British actors of the day have good supporting roles.

The story has a sad note, but also an upbeat ending that was common and surely most appropriate for the period and place. This is one of several films made during World War II of some historical value. It and others present stories based on real events, places and people during the war.

This is not the kind of musical where the leads just start singing and dancing in mid-conversation. Almost all the song and dance occurs as performance on stage. The stage is located in the historic Windmill Theatre, in London, which is called the Music Box in this film. During the London blitz, the theater was known for never missing a performance. The film pays tribute to that record and, more broadly and more importantly, to the spirit of those who braved the blitzkrieg in London.

Released in the first few days of 1945, "Tonight and Every Night" is meant as a patriotic film to rouse spirits. There is a love story, but it is secondary to the larger story.

Rita Hayworth stars as stage performer Rosalind Bruce. She and her coworkers put on five shows a day at the Music Box. Their story is primarily told, in flashback, to a reporter from Life Magazine who is doing a spread about the theater. Janet Blair plays Judy Kane, Rosalind's best friend and fellow dancer. Marc Platt plays the part of Tommy Lawson, the other major dancer. His dance is the highlight of the film. Lee Bowman plays the pilot (Paul Lundy) who wins Rosalind's heart.

Though many scenes are darkened due to the London blackouts, the Technicolor really stands out in some spots. The designers who created the fashions worn by Rita and the others also deserve mention.

If anyone wants to understand why the old movie studios could not withstand the competition from television, they should study "Tonight And Every Night", which exemplifies what was wrong with the old Hollywood studio system.

The film stars Rita Hayworth, one of the most charismatic and talented actresses ever to appear in movies. She is dressed by Jean Louis and photographed by Rudolph Mate. Apparently Columbia and Harry Cohn thought that was enough. It most certainly is not!

The screenplay is utter rubbish. There is almost no story; the dialogue in places is embarrassing; and the scenes where Lee Bowman "pitches" Rita Hayworth are so badly written - and make the Bowman character so unappealing - that it is impossible to believe any woman would have found the man attractive. The only interesting aspect to the story is the unrequited love Marc Platt's character has for Rita's showgirl, and the way he reacts when he realises there is no hope for him. Unfortunately the screenplay does not develop this, and instead lumbers towards a cliché-ridden happy resolution between Rita and Lee Bowman.

The songs have very little melody, despite having been written by Jule Styne, one the great tune-smiths of 20th Century popular music. Even worse, the dance numbers do not give Rita a chance to shine. All Jack Coles' routines are energetic, jitterbug affairs with arms and legs all over the place. There is not one elegant routine in the movie, not one moment of grace and poise. Astonishingly, although Rita had already proved in her movies with Fred Astaire that she was one of the great romantic dancers, she is not given a dance with a man - except for a few steps with Marc Platt before the camera pans away to focus on an uninteresting chorus line!

As was often the case in Rita's colour movies in the 1940's, she was impeded by the make-up department who put far too much rouge on her face. Rita was in the early stages of pregnancy when she made this movie, and occasionally it shows. Her breasts are bigger than normal - no man will complain about that! - and in the "Boy I Left Behind" duet with Janet Blair, Rita's lower stomach gives the game away.

"Tonight And Every Night" was not the worst film Rita made for Columbia: "Down To Earth" is far worse. "Tonight And Every Night" does, however, demonstrate how lazy and careless the old Hollywood studios were in the period before television.

It would have been easy for Columbia to have worked out a proper story line, to have pointed out to Jack Cole that Rita Hayworth needed a variety of dance numbers including at least one elegant, romantic routine, and to have given her a leading man who could dance.

This is one Rita Hayworth movie that can be considered an underrated gem.

Though the musical score is serviceable and the dancing at times inspired, it is the relationships between the principle characters of a small London Musical Theatre Revue led by star performer Rosalind Bruce (Rita Hayworth), set against the raging London blitz of WWII, that propels this film. The WWII/London/Theatre setting really shapes the mood and atmosphere of the story, giving a 'real world' urgency and poignancy to the film that most "behind the scenes/let's put on a show" musicals of the period lack. The characters each experience the triumph and tragedy and sacrifice of the blitz, all the while trying to stay together and put on their show night after night.

Rita looks ravishing in Technicolor, and gives a performance that is confident and skilled. And, of course, her dancing is in top form. Her wild samba number "You Excite Me" cements her position as one of the Silver Screen's finest dancers. She receives fine support from Marc Platt (who's dance solo at the beginning of the film set to flipping radio stations is stellar) and Janet Blair (watch her and Rita chew up the scenery with their musical number "The Boy I Left Behind") as her best friends and fellow performers. Lee Bowman as her Air Squadron Leader love interest, Florence Bates as the grand dame of the Music Box Theatre where the story unfolds (the small theatre almost another character unto itself), and Leslie Brooks in her small role as a man hungry performer with a heart of gold, round out this excellent cast.

A treat for Rita Hayworth fans and new fans alike.

First off, I must be honest and tell you that I am not a huge fan of musicals. Sure, I have enjoyed films like GIGI and THE SOUND OF MUSIC and I also like the Astaire-Rogers films, but usually I avoid musicals because they are either very stagy or there doesn't seem to be any reason for them to be singing in the first place. So keep this in mind when reading the review.

The film is about a theatre in London that remained open throughout the Blitz. Because it is a dance hall, the singing and dancing that occur look like scaled-down versions of a Ziegfeld Follies show--exactly the sort of stagy musical I dislike. However, due to a nice romance between Rita Hayworth and Lee Bowman (though it does develop way too quickly) and a few good songs (particularly the emotional and heart-wrenching one at the conclusion), the film is an amiable time-passer. However, for fans of STAR WARS, I do recommend you see this film just for one musical number featuring Miss Hayworth. Towards the very beginning, she has her hair up in weird buns just like Princess Leia!!! So you can see where they got the inspiration for this awful doo!

I just saw "Tonight and Every Night" , last night and I was impressed, not just by the lovely Rita Hayworth but also by Marc Platt, the dancer who plays the role of Tommy. What a wonderful dancer he was and it's a shame that he had only one big dancing scene showcasing his talent and I was wondering if he did any other films and if not many then why? Any way, the film was a lovely story loosely based on the "Windmill Theater" that continued having shows during the Nazi bombing of London. One critic's review from the 70's said that this movie wasn't good enough because Fred Astaire nor Gene Kelly were not dancing with her. I beg to differ this movie showcases Rita Hayworth's talent and she really didn't need the other two great dancers to show how talented she was. It was a very good movie with great numbers and a good romantic story.

This Columbia Technicolor musical made in 1945, the last year of WWII, is one of those tossed together, anything goes product that a wartime audience desperate for entertainment accepted. It feels at times as if Columbia filmed all the musical numbers first and then had a contest at the studio to see who could come up with a plot. Any plot. The score is undistinguished, although there's lots of it. Pluses: Jack Cole exuberant choreography, helped by the very talented Marc Platt who could both dance and act, but nobody seems to have figured out how to use him properly. Neither a romantic lead or comic relief, he's wasted here. Rita, of course, does not disappoint her fans She is her usual gorgeous self, a marvelous dancer doing her best to act the predictable boy meets girl love story that comes in and out the film between numbers, almost as an afterthought. Lee Bowman is attractive as her love interest, so is Janet Blair as the co-star in a thankless role. TRIVIA: Shelly Winters, at the beginning of her career, can be spotted here and there as one of the chorus girls, but (unless I'm mistaken) she has no dialogue. This is a mess of a film, but who can resist watching Rita? She lights up the screen.

You have to cut them some slack since this was filmed at the height of World War II Lee Bowman as leading man was no Gable. He was not even a John Payne. But he was available. The plot is non-existent and the English accents (This is supposed to be London) are laughable. Rita Hayworth looks great, dances acceptably, and has a nice dubbed singing voice. Janet Blair twinkles, and that's about it. Boy dancer Marc Platt was on a rocket to obscurity.

The sets appear to be thrown together from available surplus material. If there was a memorable song in this musical, I can't remember it. Most of the people involved, with the possible exception of young Platt, went on to better things.

It's WWII London. Rosalind Bruce (Rita Hayworth) is the star performer at the Music Box Theatre. A Life magazine photographer is doing a story on the theatre which never closed during the Blitz. A stagehand recounts the story. In flashback, Rosalind is pursued by RAF pilot Paul Lundy (Lee Bowman).

This musical is mostly about watching Rita Hayworth doing her dancing. Of course, she's a great dancer although she is dubbed for her singing. That's perfectly fine. The romance starts well, flutters for awhile, and ends on an important note. It is melodramatic at times, but that's the movie. The war is ending soon and this is bittersweet recall of recent events.

Tonight and Every Night stars the ever lovely Rita Hayworth and is set in London during WWII. Rita's a stage performer singing and dancing, which is itself enough to spark interest in this otherwise disappointing film seriously weakened by a limp script. The score is by the legendaries Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn and yet I can't recall even one tune. The leading man Lee Bowman is fine but he cannot hold his own against Hayworth. In addition to the tepid score I also feel that some of the dance numbers choreography was a bit odd as well. Despite its many shortcomings Tonight and Every Night is still worth checking out if you're genuinely interested.

I confess I could only bear watching one half of this film before switching off.The producers must therefore take the blame for a complete lack of research about what it was like living in London during the German Blitzkrieg, and what life was truly like in Britain in the 1940s, while they sat in their luxury air conditioned, comfortable offices in Hollywood, 6000 miles away.I suppose after the deserved success of "Cover Girl" (1944) they thought, "Why not produce a similar movie set in London".The trouble was they had to use American actors using phony accents to give some semblance to the non existent plot.They even cast Lee Bowman again from "Cover Girl", playing a Clark Gable type part.How I hate that moustache!The script was one cliché after another.Apart from Rita's obvious dancing talent, the only enjoyable part was when the unknown male dancer at the beginning of the film, dances to a tirade by Herr Schickelgruber!

For Welsh viewers it must have been irksome to see the word "England" spread all over a map of Britain which included Wales, during a dance sequence.I could only award it 4/10.To echo another UK reviewer, the producers were coy about identifying the real London theatre - "The Windmill" whose slogan was "We Never Closed" and its female impresario, Mrs Henderson, which and who "inspired" this film.

I'm floored, I 'm devastated, I could never imagine I would enjoy this film as immensely as I just did.

Yesterday I saw "The Lady is Willing" -1942- with Marlene Dietrich, and although both films belong to the same era and in both there is froth and the morality of the time, they are worlds apart; Marlene looks like an embalmed corpse while Rita Hayworth is Mother Earth personified, all beauty, glamour and warmth, plus an excellent actress and a superb dancer, maybe the best dancer of all times for this kind of vehicle.

"Tonight and Every Night" is so very well put together that it's almost a miracle, incredible how professional those people were!! Top drawer each one in whatever they were doing: The scriptwriters, the technical film crew, the dancers, the choreographers, wow, everybody and everything!! Let aside the war propaganda very understandable for those years, I was so impressed by the camaraderie, the human bondage between the company members, the warmth the whole movie is wrapped in...

Rita Hayworth is so lovely that seems to be unreal, but not unreal the way Marlene was unreal, Marlene could freeze you on the spot with just a look, Rita doesn't look fake, she is just adorable and human. Maybe the rouge on her cheeks and the eye shadow are a bit too much, but the whole movie being a fantasy, who cares!

The costumes are gorgeous, the color combinations are superb, all the dancers, male and female, have the most slender figures anyone can imagine, they look like Barbie dolls, but human --I don't know how to put it-- we talk so much nowadays about that controversial subject, anorexia, well, already in those years they have these slim figures we have nowadays, but inexplicably, they don't look emaciated, they look incredibly healthy!!

An interesting detail was that all these chorus girls were...virgins... well, according to their behavior in this movie they were. Enough, I think I made it clear that I liked this movie, didn't I?

This is perhaps the worst movie musical ever to emerge from a major Hollywood studio. Everything about it is bad, especially the cheesy sets, the rotten script, and the utterly forgettable music. Check out the dance number with Rita Hayworth and Janet Blair in their long-johns. Poor Rita. Avoid this film unless you're into really bad flicks, just for laughs.

Rita Hayworth is an American showgirl at the Music Box Theater in London, which proudly proclaims that it's open every night, despite the War raging about them during the Battle of Britain. She also carries on an increasingly serious romance with Squadron Leader Lee Bowman between musical numbers.

It's actually about the Windmill Theater, in a highly expurgated version. The Windmill, in addition to being renowned for staying open throughout the War, is better remembered for featuring naked showgirls. They got around the rules for such matters by featuring them in tableaux vivants, reproductions of famous works of art. They made the case that there was no objection to showing a picture of a naked woman, so.... The Lord Chamberlain issued the ruling that 'If you move it's rude' and the shows continued through 1964. The Hays Office was not so amenable, so the girls never appear in anything less than Union suits.

The unspoken titilation aside, it's a fairly standard movie featuring Miss Hayworth's dancing to Jack Cole's choreography, Marc Platt as a dancer who is also in love with Miss Hayworth, and some decent but unremarkable songs by Sammy Cahn and Jules Styne, as well as such lovely ladies as Janet Blair, Leslie Brooks, Dusty Anderson, and Florence Bates.

When I first saw this movie I was a 13 year old boy in love with Rita Hayworth. In many ways the movie is a typical 40's musical chick flick. What is not typical is the story based on real events in London during the blitz instead of a contrived plot to frame the musical numbers. (See the recent "Mrs. Henderson Presents".) The story has bravery and tragedy as well as the usual romance and fluff. Also above average are the score by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn as well as the talents of Rita Hayworth, Janet Blair (in a strong second banana role), and Marc Platt, the dancer who went on to be one of the brothers in "Seven Brides For Seven Brothers". Without giving away the ending, have your hankie ready.

This film is based on a real theater and theater troop during WWII. The theater never closed its doors despite the Blitz with bombs falling all around and over it. (It was an underground theater.) It's a part of England's history.

This isn't the best film ever made, but certainly not the worst as some have made it out to be. It's simply a light musical mixed with drama.

To see another take on this story be sure to see "Mrs. Henderson Presents" with Dame Judy Dench and Bob Hoskins. It's a fantastic film that really presents the way it was "back then." I know, because I was around then and this film brought back some good and some bad memories.

DLMc