Let's Be Happy

I saw this film in glorious Cinemascope and color at the Palace Theatre when it first opened in 1957, and was already enchanted with the dancing charms of Vera-Ellen, certainly one of, if not the best dancers in Hollywood history. No, she didn't sing (always dubbed, although early stage recordings display a fun dancer's voice), and her acting relied heavily on her charm and good looks, but when she danced, watch out!

The film is a slight vehicle for the charms of Vera-Ellen and Tony Martin, star baritone of various MGM films of the 40s and 50s (and as Robert Osborne points out on TCM, you expect this to be an MGM film, but it's one of the few Allied Artists musicals of the period), complete with songs written by composer Nicholas Brodszky (Love Me Or Leave Me). At least it's not studio-bound; it was filmed in 1956 at the dazzling Edinburgh Festival, as well as other beautiful Scotland locales.

You will long to see the original Cinemascope print, but all that seems to exist is a pan and scan version. Better than nothing, and it is the only chance to see the film, which TCM just began showing in the past year, after it had been seemingly lost for the past 20-odd years. But now we need a proper print in the original Scope on DVD. Come on, Warner Archives, you've released every grade B and C film known and unknown, give a little TLC to LET'S BE HAPPY.

Let's Be Happy is a musical film shot in Scotland by a British film company and released in America under the Allied Artist banner. It also has two American stars, Tony Martin and Vera-Ellen and both made their final big screen appearance in this production. Musicals were certainly becoming rarer and rarer on the screen by 1957.

If people have followed my reviews on Tony Martin's films, one my criticisms is why he was never teamed with his wife Cyd Charisse in any movie. Cyd was under contract to MGM and Tony did occasional films there as well. Both would move on to the nightclub phase of their careers as their primary venue and they were one of the biggest acts on that circuit for many years. I think Let's Be Happy was created with both of them in mind, but apparently Cyd was otherwise occupied with work at MGM. She did do Silk Stockings that same year over at that much bigger studio. So Vera-Ellen was brought in instead.

The story is a slight one and the songs by Nicholas Brodszky and Paul Francis Webster are pretty forgettable, but they're done well as sang by Tony and danced to by Vera-Ellen. She's a Vermont farm girl who gets an inheritance from her grandfather of $5000.00 approximately, kept in a secret compartment because apparently grandfather did not trust banks. And as a good Scots girl, she decides to visit the old country.

She meets Tony on the plane and the two seem to hit it off. But along the way an impoverished title played by Robert Flemyng gets the idea that Vera-Ellen is really loaded and in the tradition of European nobility down on its luck, they woo the rich American.

Let's Be Happy does boast some really nice cinematography of Edinburgh, a city which definitely believes in keeping its ancient look up for the tourists. It's a pleasant enough 90+ minutes of entertainment, but I do so wish Tony Martin had done this with Cyd Charisse.

An independent feature made at the very, very end of the movie musical's golden age, and the desperation shows. Vera-Ellen, looking unhealthily slim and not dancing much, is a Vermont lass who inherits enough money to fly to Edinburgh, where she keeps running into Tony Martin and is wooed by impoverished lord Robert Flemyng. Martin, looking beefy and well past his leading-man prime, sings everywhere--at airport customs, in a Scottish dining car, at Vera's Vermont bungalow--and the songs, by Nicholas Brodzky and Paul Francis Webster, are neatly integrated enough but not what you'd call exciting. Nor is Henry Levin's direction, and even the Edinburgh location shooting looks rather skimpy. Wan storytelling, no-name supporting cast, so-so songs… No wonder it didn't do well.

This film wouldn't ever be listed as a major musical, but I found it likable. There are hackneyed elements to the story but it moves along well and good use is made of minor characters. The two stars obviously both have more than a few miles on the clock - Martin has a very lived-in face, and Vera-Ellen could use a botox injection, but they are both agreeable presences. These days (I'd like to think) their age would be acknowledged in a story line which gave them each a second-time around background, but not in those days. The 50's fashions look great on Vera-Ellen and the redhead opposition. The Paris and Edinburgh locations are milked to advantage. I enjoyed the touches of Britishness in the "lord" and the hotel staff. The dances are sometimes slight, but enjoyable. Altogether quite a lot to like, worth sticking with as a pleasant piece of escapism.

Vera-Ellen presumably enjoyed the trip to Britain six years years earlier to make 'Happy-Go-Lovely' since she returned to make a second musical remake in Technicolor of an old British film - also set in Edinburgh - for producer Marcel Hellman, again with a director and male lead imported from Hollywood. (Since she promptly retired upon completing it doesn't suggest she cared much for the final result.)

Only the British supporting cast (including a few authentic Scots) and actual shots of Vera-Ellen in Paris and Edinburgh - as well as the rather drab look of the piece overall - confirm that it was indeed made in Britain since it remains largely studio-bound; while the musical numbers are stagy and look shoe-horned into the film.

The annoying, ever-present incidental music by Nicholas Brodsky is at least the subject of one nice little joke on the soundtrack. While the rare opportunity it furnishes to see Zena Marshall in Technicolor is sadly compromised by the fact that they've made her a harshly made-up brassy redhead on the make.