A Brassiest Of Wartime Revues

An All-Star Thank Your Lucky Stars for 1943

Thank Your Lucky Stars is a wartime revue that stays largely off the topic of war. It may be a best of many that included MGM's Thousands Cheer, Paramount's Star-Spangled Rhythm, Universal's Follow The Boys, and Warner Bros.' other contribution to the group, Hollywood Canteen. WB was for me a preferred of these because their attitude toward talent and themselves was most irreverent. A Looney Tune sensibility had seeped into live action at Burbank. Whereas Metro and Para did us favor of privileged glimpse behind scenes, WB made theirs object of spoofery and personas going surprise direction. Bogart and John Garfield the tough guys? Let one be cowed and the other sing. Had Errol Flynn or Bette Davis sung/danced on screen before (let alone had she jitterbugged)? They would now. Much that was unexpected to 1943 viewership happened here. They surely were delighted.

Such jamboree amounted to studio display of trophy rooms. For a public eager to know stars in natural habitat, they were Sunday rotogravure and fan magazines sprung to life. Favorites trying the unaccustomed would, among other things, reveal employer estimation of artists' ability. Most talent is seen to advantage in Thank Your Lucky Stars, but not all. Bogart the badman threat is unable to be so with S.Z. Sakall, who gives him a slapping. HB's the slacker among Stars who sing/dance. Was he so inept for that, or unwilling to pull a number together? Sahara was in progress, so Bogart is unshaven. As "himself," there was no recourse but the gangster, his Casablanca transform to romantic lead man not fully cemented (Thank Your Lucky Stars was in production from late 1942 into 1943, period in which Casablanca premiered and then went into general release). But Bogart would always be condemned to wear Duke Mantee's mask, his WWII camp sketches built around the actor seeking a "mob" among servicemen to oppose Axis gangland. He'd even grow back stubble and be Duke again ("Nails" Bogart) as Jack Benny's 1953 TV guest.

The Garfield spot isn't as dogmatic, for at least he sings (Blues In The Night) and there's wit in changed lyrics to accommodate him, but Garfield too was mired in Warners' perception of him, intro as "The Bad Boy Of Burbank" unbecoming to an actor who needed mature parts to get out of casting rut. It was stars who surprised in Thank Your Lucky Stars that came off best. Bette Davis was held till late in proceedings for her act being most anticipated. She did They're Either Too Young Or Too Old, which became a wartime standard. There is almost violent jitterbugging she engages, which director David Butler recalled as injurious to the actress (multiple falls, scarped and bleeding knees). Davis had advantage of being at career peak here, enhancing a can-do-anything resume, and offered song-and-comic relief from high dramatics the lot of her starring WB vehicles.

David Butler as director was invited to Warners by friend and Lucky producer Mark Hellinger. Butler made it his business to get along with everyone he worked with. There was jolly countenance about him, helped by portly build and attitude that movies were just a job you did as best you could. He was the ideal journeyman, but no slouch for good results (Sunny Side Up, San Antonio, It's A Great Feeling, Calamity Jane, several of better Bob Hopes, Shirley Temples). Whatever Butler lacked of inspiration was made up with affability. I wonder how Orson Welles' career might have worked out given some of Butler's people skills. Thank Your Lucky Stars took half a year to finish, with multiple units at play. Butler had to divide time between "book" sections and the star specialties, a process not unlike what had gone on with WB 30's musicals where narrative was isolated from Busby Berkeley highlights virtually productions in themselves.

A largely unsung value of Thank Your Lucky Stars is fact that it was a last stand in a big movie for Eddie Cantor, not too different from Goldwyn's Eddie-All-The-Time formula that worked so well in early to mid-30's. For his dominating book portions here, there are two Eddies, but who tabbed the already comic legend to play himself as such an ego-driven louse? Warners tended to go rough on stars doing themselves, as evidenced by the Bogart bit, but there was nothing of Cantor's image to suggest so obnoxious a character as posited here. The nebbish alter-ego is relief from the Hyde that is "Eddie Cantor," and both make most of comic opportunity, but which among Thank Your Lucky Stars writers had it in for Banjo Eyes, a mistreated former staffer from his radio program perhaps? In whatever case, Cantor was lucky to have such a showcase in light of his air series having dropped from the Top 20, and movies lately giving him a go-by. And if not for Thank Your Lucky Stars, we'd not have minted-for-a-new-war We're Staying Home Tonight, a neat tune done with the old Cantor brio.

Thank Your Lucky Stars is about crashing Hollywood gates rather than Axis barricades, unusual among wartime revues, all the others charting narrative and much of song upon course to victory. Dennis Morgan and Joan Leslie are star hopefuls; they want less to win a war than appear on Eddie Cantor's broadcast. In fact, neither mention the conflict. Of star production numbers, the one most foursquare to war interest is Errol Flynn's That's What You Jolly Well Get, unusual for its combat "hero" revealed as a liar and braggart, Flynn in Music Hall mode and Cockney voice/garb. If Thank Your Lucky Stars was reveal of untapped talent, his may be a most startling, there being nothing of Flynn's past to suggest aptitude for song/ dance. The fact he's spoofing his own image, which would be seriously tarnished by an extended trial on statutory charges, made the act work on levels beyond surface pleasure. Thank Your Lucky Stars is available on DVD and has streamed on Warner Instant in HD.