I must admit that I had a really good time with this very rare Martha Raye comedy that instantly reminded me of the Judy Garland / Gene Kelly musical "Summer Stock" which came out from MGM ten years after this. Missing are the big musical numbers and glorious Technicolor, and in fact there are no songs at all other than a brief solo by Raye of "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair" and a montage of the show within the film. At just over an hour, this has enough comedy, romance and conflict to make for satisfactory entertainment, but obviously this is "B" material at best and one of those films that attracted big city audiences but apparently kept alleged country bumpkins out of the movie theater.
Charlie Ruggles is a Broadway producer with a very temperamental star (Gertrude Michael) who is so despised in the Broadway world that the only way they can get the show off the ground is to take his on the road first and find financial backers from visitors to the country. I have seen some temperamental divas on screen in my time but none nastier than Michael here who is unpleasant from the start and has it in for anybody who even dares to step in her way. For poor Martha Raye, doing line readings with leading man Richard Denning instantly gets her the wrath of Michael who obviously has a sixth sense that Raye is far more talented than she is. Comical Martha is considered a jinx because for some reason every time she appears on the scene, some funny sort of disaster occurs. But when Michael storms out in a temperamental rage over secrets kept from her, there's only one person whom Ruggles and co-producer William Demarest feel can do it, and that's the big mouth from the Polident commercials.
Of course, the title of this film will remind people of the quite different Loretta Young movie that won her the Oscar 8 years later, but this film is nowhere even close to that. I'm surprised that Paramount did not try to make this a bit more lavish considering the fact that Raye was very popular at the time and their musicals with Bing Crosby, Mary Martin and/or Dorothy Lamour were doing quite well. So instead of a "let's put a show on in a barn musical", we get a behind-the-scenes look at how a show in a barn is put on, but the lack of an actual musical show ends up being a great let down.
Charlie Ruggles is a Broadway producer with a very temperamental star (Gertrude Michael) who is so despised in the Broadway world that the only way they can get the show off the ground is to take his on the road first and find financial backers from visitors to the country. I have seen some temperamental divas on screen in my time but none nastier than Michael here who is unpleasant from the start and has it in for anybody who even dares to step in her way. For poor Martha Raye, doing line readings with leading man Richard Denning instantly gets her the wrath of Michael who obviously has a sixth sense that Raye is far more talented than she is. Comical Martha is considered a jinx because for some reason every time she appears on the scene, some funny sort of disaster occurs. But when Michael storms out in a temperamental rage over secrets kept from her, there's only one person whom Ruggles and co-producer William Demarest feel can do it, and that's the big mouth from the Polident commercials.
Of course, the title of this film will remind people of the quite different Loretta Young movie that won her the Oscar 8 years later, but this film is nowhere even close to that. I'm surprised that Paramount did not try to make this a bit more lavish considering the fact that Raye was very popular at the time and their musicals with Bing Crosby, Mary Martin and/or Dorothy Lamour were doing quite well. So instead of a "let's put a show on in a barn musical", we get a behind-the-scenes look at how a show in a barn is put on, but the lack of an actual musical show ends up being a great let down.
