I was quite disappointed with this. I had seen Hollywood Canteen and enjoyed it. This East Coast version had more stars, but used them to less advantage. Besides giving us more stars, this movie tries to add a love story, but it is more pathetic than uplifting.
Most of the stars are given about one minute to do a joke or two, these are okay, but the stars who are given three or four minutes, like Georgie Jezzel, Ray Bolger, and Edgar Bergen are only mildly amusing at best. The only musical number that I enjoyed was Benny Goodman. His swing song with a young and beautiful Peggy Lee rocked. The only other bit I really enjoyed was Gypsy Rose Lee. She tried to do a strip tease that could get past the censors and ended up only taking off her girdle and her gloves. Yet her obvious sexuality turned all the soldiers on. This was just around the time she had come out with a novel "The G String Murders" and a play "The Naked Genius" and was starting to break out of burlesque.
The problem is the film is devoted too much too lame war propaganda, as if the producers felt they had to justify the free food, dancing girls and entertainment at the Canteen by reminding us that it was for our gallant boys every few minutes. They also took pains to assure us that no sexual activity was going on between the girls who worked in the canteen and the soldiers. It makes me suspect that just the opposite was the case.
See "Hollywood Canteen" which has fewer stars, but is a lot more fun.
Most of the stars are given about one minute to do a joke or two, these are okay, but the stars who are given three or four minutes, like Georgie Jezzel, Ray Bolger, and Edgar Bergen are only mildly amusing at best. The only musical number that I enjoyed was Benny Goodman. His swing song with a young and beautiful Peggy Lee rocked. The only other bit I really enjoyed was Gypsy Rose Lee. She tried to do a strip tease that could get past the censors and ended up only taking off her girdle and her gloves. Yet her obvious sexuality turned all the soldiers on. This was just around the time she had come out with a novel "The G String Murders" and a play "The Naked Genius" and was starting to break out of burlesque.
The problem is the film is devoted too much too lame war propaganda, as if the producers felt they had to justify the free food, dancing girls and entertainment at the Canteen by reminding us that it was for our gallant boys every few minutes. They also took pains to assure us that no sexual activity was going on between the girls who worked in the canteen and the soldiers. It makes me suspect that just the opposite was the case.
See "Hollywood Canteen" which has fewer stars, but is a lot more fun.