dwpollar Review of Alexander's Ragtime Band

Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938)

Snappy tunes, sappy romance but fun song-filled movie...

[7/10 · 16 April 2014]

1st watched 4/13/2014 -- 7 out of 10 (Dir-Henry King): Snappy tunes, sappy romance but fun song-filled movie manipulating the hopeless romantic in all of us way down until the inevitable happy conclusion brings us back up again. The movie is the story of a classical trained musician who becomes enticed to the hipper ragtime sound and then becomes Alexander due to performing the song "Alexander's Ragtime Band" after accidentally receiving the tune that was originally brought to the place of their initial show by a singer played by Alice Faye. This changed this band leader's life as portrayed by Tyrone Powers into a big time person on the music scene. The two main characters start out at odds against each other due to the before-mentioned issue with the title song, but eventually quickly fall in love like would be expected in an American-made happy-go-lucky movie. The only real negative part of the movie is how they extend the ending and bring the Faye character down to the point of depression just for the sake of adding more Irving Berlin songs but this can be excused fairly easily because of the quality of these songs. The movie is filled with singable staples in early American music like "Blue Skies", "Heat Wave", and "Easter Parade" along with an Oscar winning ballad named "Now it can be Told." Don Ameche, plays the male part of the third cog in the romantic triangle with a young Ethel Merman being the female, and they are amazingly accepting of the stars getting together despite their love for the main characters -- but for the sake of Americana we accept this for the overall goal of enjoying the tune-filled movie. This movie is really about the music and we know it from the very beginning with the title flashing Irving Berlin's name in front of the movie name and this is acceptable to the audience and makes for an enjoyable experience with eventually love winning out in the end and ultimately the viewer being the winner.