Where Singers and Clowns Were Our Secret Weapons
Ship Ahoy (1942) Is Smooth Musical Sailing
A honey of an MGM wartime musical, based on
obvious truth that singer/dancer/comics make the best couriers during national
emergency. In this case, it's Eleanor Powell dispatched with a secret weapon to
rendezvous with tropic allies, but wait, her G-men contacts are really Axis
moles! It falls to Red Skelton, Bert Lahr, and Virginia O'Brien to sort things
out, with Tommy Dorsey's band for lulling backdrop. Ship Ahoy has much the
pleasing spirit, albeit B/W, of Fox's same-year The Gang's All Here; I'd be for
pairing them as ambassadors of 1943 escapism. Powell performs customary
miracles of tap as Skelton works unsteadily toward lead man status his
Whistling series implied. Red found it tough moderating silly when moments came
to play straight, he and Eleanor Powell uneasy as love partners. Bert
Lahr is actually more believable in that capacity with Virginia O'Brien, them
the couple I found funnier and more engaging. Lahr may not have clicked in
leads, but for support and rollicking spots, none were his equal. O'Brien does
but one of her signature deadpan numbers; you wish there were more of her. For
recital otherwise, young Frank Sinatra gets feet wet in movies as
vocal accompany to Dorsey numbers. He's spotlighted twice and clearly sized up for screen potential. Ship Ahoy, like so much of Metro,
runs a little long at 95 minutes, a third act playing more like an unnecessary fourth. So much that is pleasurable, plus knowing this was wartime way of excess typical of Metro, makes bloat easy
to forgive. Warner Archive has Ship Ahoy available on DVD, and it turns up at
TCM in HD.
One of my favorite musicals. A hidden gem.
ReplyDeleteand there's this exchange at a nightclub scene:
Lahr: "Hiya puss, what cha doing after the show?"
Waitress: "The laundry."
Stinky could watch Eleanor Powell all day. And has.
ReplyDeleteRed Skelton is a hefty distance from James Stewart and Fred Astaire. Eleanor deserved better.
ReplyDeleteJohn and Stinky, I'm gonna stick up for Skelton a little. He was really in the same boat as Powell at MGM. Between fabulous dance numbers, the studio didn't really know what to do with Elanor, her interesting looks & personality not exactly fitting into Metro's predetermined molds. She ended up as a supporting character in her own starring films. Likewise the studio spotlighted Red doing over the top schtick, bending over backwards to reference his radio show, but seemed uninterested in helping him develop a nuanced comedy leading man persona. His starring vehicles toggled too often between big deal musicals (he'd pop out of the background every 5 or 10 minutes and do his bit in the plot) or drably unfunny 'little pictures' like HALF A HERO or THE CLOWN (in which he, never the less, always proved to be a surprisingly natural actor.) Only a handful of his MGM films did him justice (I do think the WHISTLING films hold up okay, especially WHISTLING IN DIXIE)
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