CHASING RAINBOWS alert: TCM Monday Nov. 9

[Brad from Georgia]

Chasing Rainbows will air on November 9 (Monday) at 8:45 A.M. EST. It's fairly rare to see this early effort on the broadcast schedule!

[Brad from Georgia]

After having watched Chasing Rainbows, I have this response:

First, sadly, the film is incomplete: two long musical segments, originally shot in two-strip Technicolor, have disintegrated--and this includes the big finish, featuring "Happy Days Are Here Again," which would within a couple of years become FDR's theme song in his first campaign for the Presidency. Next, what's there isn't bad. It's a backstage showbiz tale: Jack is Eddie Rock, the manager of the troupe; they are taking a Broadway show on the road for a grueling months-long tour. Bessie Love is Carlie, half of a song-and-dance team that has managed to leave Vaudeville for the legitimate stage. . . but in the show she has a decidedly second-rate role. The other half of the team, Terry Fay (played by Charles King) is the male star of the musical.

Unfortunately, Terry has a bad habit of falling in love with practically every female he meets, remaining oblivious to the fact that Carlie is attracted to him. This, by the way, is a literally ancient trope: Ralph Roister Doister, one of the very earliest English comedies (written eleven years before Shakespeare was born), features in Ralph an identically susceptible character.

When the group loses its leading lady shortly after the movie begins, the replacement is Daphne (Nita Martan), who sets her sights on Terry, knowing he can help her career--but she is simultaneously carrying on an affair, behind Terry's back, with lounge-lizard type Cordova (Eddie Phillips). Another couple of members of the troupe are Bonnie (Marie Dressler, actress) and Polly (Polly Moran, wardrobe mistress and gadfly). These two have a constant battle of wits, elbows, and booze.

Surprisingly, Chasing Rainbows is more plausible as a showbiz story than many later musicals--for one thing, the songs that are taken from the musical have some logical relation to each other and one can glimpse a fairly decent plot line--unlike the hodgepodge of, say, 42nd Street, in which the supposed play-within-a-play would have cost a bajillion dollars to stage and would have played out like the fever dream of a madman.

Now, the humor in the piece is dated--the Dressler/Moran byplay is typically heavy-handed, and one can't see what Carlie could possibly see in the meat-heated Terry to begin with. However, Jack marvelously UNDERplays his role, trying to keep the show on the road and the cast from killing each other. He's the eye of the storm, holding it all together while chaos swirls around him--a role not unlike Jack's function on the Jack Benny radio show (and not unlike Kermit the Frog in the Muppet Show for that matter). He ranges from cajoling to sarcasm to exasperation, but it's all very controlled. His biggest problem is struggling against eyeshadow that makes him look raccoonoid.

It's a period piece, but worth a look!

[shimp scrampi]

Appreciate the review and comments Brad, I've never seen this one!