So many screen exercises in the
music-album line have been so cluttered up with "biography" that it
is a pleasure at last to see one in which a tune-vender's life and his music
are not mutually and mawkishly abused. Such a one is the Paramount's current
and cheerfully diverting "Blue Skies," which catalogues some songs of
Irving Berlin without catalyzing that gentleman's career. And with Fred Astaire
and Bing Crosby as its bright particular stars, everyone's probity is honored
by it—especially Mr. Berlin's.
There's a lot to be said for any
picture in the musical comedy groove which adheres to the oft-forgotten dictum
that a film should be seen as well as heard, that variety and vitality in the
visual are the stuff of which musicals are made. And when the evidence of that
adherence is so enthusiastically displayed as it is by Messrs. Astaire and
Crosby in "Blue Skies," you may depend upon being entertained.
The story? Let's not argue about
it. It's a standard and harmless little thing about the casual and genial
competition between two song-and-dance men for a girl. One of them very soon
gets her, but as he is a rolling stone, his interest is slightly sporadic. On
that track, it ambles along. As a plot, it is no more elusive than the peg for
"Holiday Inn," in which the two above-mentioned performers and Mr.
Berlin's tunes were also combined. And the worst—or the best—to be said for it
(you can tolerably take your pick) is that it does have a few soggy moments
which are quickly and obligingly dismissed.
But it does serve as adequate
hanger for some sparkling and stimulating turns of song, dance and general farcifying
to Mr. Berlin's familiar tunes. Best of the lot, for our wampum, is Mr.
Astaire's electrifying dance to that ancient and honorable folk-song,
"Puttin' on the Ritz." Turned out in striped pants and top hat, Mr.
A. makes his educated feet talk a persuasive language that is thrilling to
conjugate. The number ends with some process-screen trickery in which a dozen
or so midget Astaire’s back up the tapping soloist in a beautiful surge of
clickety-clicks. If this film is Mr. A.'s swan song, as he has heartlessly
announced it will be, then he has climaxed his many years of hoofing with a
properly superlative must-see.
And that's not his only
contribution. In company with the redoubtable Bing, he doubles in song while
that nipper doubles in dance in a comedy gem, written especially for the
occasion, entitled "Two Song-and-Dance Men." He also kicks his heels
glibly in a fancy production of the torrid "Heat Wave," and trips
through the plot and other numbers with the elasticity of a happy rubber man. Naturally, Mr. Crosby, as the
rolling-stone character, has his share of the spotlight and holds it with
aggressive modesty. He makes something lively, slick and novel of
"Cuba," along with Olga San Juan, and groans with his customary
competence a new hit "You Keep Coming Back Like a Song." Joan
Caulfield, the "you" of this ditty, is loveliest and passive as the
girl who stands none too seriously or firmly between Crosby and Astaire. And
Billy De Wolfe, an obnoxious sort of person, is allowed only once to get too
much in the way. For the rest, there are no less
than twenty of Mr. Berlin's melodious tunes jammed here and there onto the
sound-track, either as production numbers or incidental bits. And we must say
that Robert Emmett Dolan has directed the music as distinctively as Stuart
Heisler has directed the actors—or maybe more so. That's why they sound so
good. Or maybe it's because they're used as music and not as milestones in
somebody's awesome "life."
When I showed my wife BLUE SKIES years ago, she thought it was corny but this movie has so much going for it. It features a unique time in American history – between both World Wars that is often over looked in film. The movie also paints a realistic portrayal of what a struggle marriage can be sometimes. Yes, the marriage of Bing and Joan Caulfield was a show biz marriage, but if you looked closely at what broke them up, it is the same problems that face married people even today – lack of communication and trust. For a 1940s musical this film deals with some serious subject matter, which you tend to overlook, because the star of the film is the Irving Berlin music, and the perfect performances of Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire who were just a couple of song and dance men!
THE END...
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