Hooray for Love

Gene Raymond graduates college and heads to the Big Apple to make a smash on Broadway. It's a lot slower than he expected. Then he meets up with songbird Ann Sothern, her deadbeat dad Thurston Hall, who get him to put his last buck in a stage show.

It's 1935, and across the lot Astaire, Rogers and Sandrich were redefining the musical, a book musical. This one has a book, which is ok, but the musical numbers are specialty acts.... but what specialties! Pert Kelton has a very funny routine as a ridiculous singer, Maria Gambarrelli, soon of the NYC Met, offers some ballet. The standout number has Bill Robinson and Jeni Le Gon singing and dancing to Dorothy Fields' and Jimmy McHugh's "I'm Living in a Great Big Way" while Fats Waller plays the piano. How are you going to do better than that?

"Hooray for Love" is a potboiler comedy romance and musical revue typical of so many that all the Hollywood studios made in the 1930s. After sound entered moving pictures at the end of the 1920s, these musical revue type of films began to supplant the live performances that people were used to from vaudeville. But, a studio couldn't just string together a bunch of numbers and routines on film; although to audiences within a few decades looking back, it appeared that many of these old films were little more than that. So, they wrote stories in which to place all those numbers. And, most of these turned out to be little more than strings to tie together the musical numbers and comedy sketches.

The absolute rubber stamp of all these films is their setting in New York City. It had to be there because that's where Broadway is located. Broadway isn't just a street. It's the name of the general theater area of New York where live plays are staged, and that the street traverses. And, Broadway had been the birthplace and headquarters of theater shows since its first theater opened after the Dutch bought Long Island from the natives in 1626.

With so many movies showing the glitz and glimmer of the Big Apple, the draw of the big city to many small town kids was strong. The vast majority of those who left home for the lights and glamour of New York never made it in show biz, obviously. Some stayed and settted down after finding real work. Others went back home. And some struck out, seeking opportunities elsewhere.

Of course, Hollywood wouldn't have sold many tickets to movies that showed disappointment. Struggling and hard times, yes, until the breaks came. But then, the hero and or heroine would get the break and make it big with a hit on Broadway. A frequent variation on this theme would be the traveling theater shows that would take trains across the country to put on shows. In short order, these types of musical films - the revue formats, set on and off Broadway, became like the dime novels of literature of the time. The better talents appeared in musicals with more story substance and/or quality music and dance; and they were set in numerous locales from nightclubs in exotic cities to every imaginable setting.

Now, back to this 1935 musical revue and comedy romance. It's the standard hair-thin plot with just a slight variation, set on Broadway but without any standout musical talent, or any memorable numbers. Bill Robinson, a song and dance man of the period does some nice tap dancing and singing, but his numbers are forgettable, and the scenes are far too long and unimpressive. Legendary jazz piano player Fats Waller is wasted with some mundane key work. The music is sparse and not of star quality. Indeed, the film has just a few numbers stretched out and repeated a couple times.

One wants to give Gene Raymond and Ann Sothern better marks. They are very likable here. But the story just drags on and quickly becomes boring. Even the best of the humor, provided mostly by a middle-aged (53) Thurston Hall, wears thin after a while. This movie just doesn't have much.

For a comparison of films of the musical revue type, look at another RKO picture that also starred Gene Raymond. Two years earlier, the studio made "Flying Down to Rio." It was loaded with talent and great musical productions, and it had a good plot.

You have to wait till near the end to see the Bojangles number, with a brief appearance from Fats Waller, but the wait is painless. Ann Sothern stars on the strength of her singing, of all things...

I found this movie in the 1970s and it usually played on or around Thanksgiving. I love Vintage movies like My Man Godfrey and this one. It is a totally underrated movie with one of the nicest casts around. Ann Southern, Gene Raymond, Bill Robinson and Jeni Le Gon. Guess you wonder who Ms. Le Gon was. She was a woman from Chicago that was not formally taught Tap but could mimic the moves until she got a role in the movie. She and Bill Robinson does a really crisp dance together. I saw this lovely woman on television about 10 years ago. She explained how she got the part.

What I really like is the chemistry of Gene and Ann and the little loose plot and the music. When Ann Southern Sings "I'm in Love All Over Again", it kind of pulls at my heart. Actually, I want to find this movie, I really do because for some reason it hasn't been back on television in about 15 years or better!

A not very memorable score from Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields characterizes Hooray For Love. But Gene Raymond and Ann Sothern have every reason to believe the title. And where else will you get to see Bill 'Bojangles' Robinson dance and Fats Waller sing and play piano in the same number. That in itself is worth setting aside some time to see this.

But the real star of this film is Thurston Hall who usually plays stuffy establishment types in films and on television. But here he's a larcenous old conman who fleeces earnest young Gene Raymond who is trying to put on a show.

Raymond wants to put it on with Ann Sothern and Hall who sees that his daughter who is the only thing that really means anything to him makes some heavy sacrifices with society matron Georgia Caine. Over at Paramount WC Fields would have played this part to perfection.

I'm surprised at the number of people who don't know about Ann Sothern's theatrical background. Under her real name of Harriet Lake, Sothern was in any number of shows on Broadway, she in fact starred in one of Rodgers&Hart's musicals before coming to Hollywood. It was only in television that she seems to have given up the musical part of her performing persona.

Hooray For Love is an enjoyable piece of Thirties backstage fluff with the main features being Robinson and Waller and a different kind of role for Thurston Hall.