Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Frances Chung Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

HarlowMGM HIGH HIDE AND HANDSOME is an big expensive Paramount musical directed by Rouben Mamoulian that tries to combine a MGMesque romantic musical production with a Cecil B. DeMille-sized dramatic epic with fairly successful results thanks to a lovely original Oscar Hammerstein III - Jerome Kern score and an excellent cast headed by Irene Dunne, Randolph Scott, Dorothy Lamour, Elizabeth Patterson, Alan Hale, Charles Bickford, Ben Blue, Raymond Walburn, and William Frawley.Irene Dunne stars as a singer/dancer who travels the country as part of pop Raymond Walburn's medicine show. When the medicine show wagon burns up during a stint in Pennslyvania, Dunne, Walburn, and faux Indian entertainer William Frawley are stranded and put up for the night by farmer Randolph Scott and his grandmother Elizabeth Patterson. The trio works their way into Scott and Patterson's heart and stay on as help to earn their keep until Walburn can rebuild an old wagon Scott has given him. Irene and Randolph fall in love and she encourages him with his dream as he drills for oil on the family homestead. When the wagon is built and it's now time to go, the sheepish Scott can't bring himself to propose to Irene but as the wagon leaves and encouraged by grandma, Scott rides off to meet them and fetch Irene back.At their wedding, the oil well hits a gusher and Scott and the local farmers are ecstatic about their potential fortunes. Alas, evil railroad magnate Alan Hale is out to milk them of every penny of profit by excessive fees to ship the oil on his railroad, hoping to make them sellout to him. Scott gets a brainstorm to build a pipeline to move the oil which Hale repeatedly attempts to thwart with his gang. Meanwhile, the Scott-Dunne union is crumbling due to his excessive devotion to the oil wells and when Irene is seen by Randolph singing in a saloon along with her poor friend Dorothy Lamour, a former shanty boat singer whom Irene is trying to help land a job, they have a big fight and Irene leaves to join her father in his current position with a traveling circus. Meanwhile, Hale continues his dastardly plans to ruin Scott's pipe dreams.Irene Dunne is excellent as Sally, the rather elegant medicine show entertainer and Randolph Scott more than holds his own in a superb performance as her dashing bucolic white knight. Irene has several beautiful numbers including the classic "The Folks Who Live on the Hill". Dorothy Lamour is also excellent as the saloon singer who at one point is run out of town by the prudish "good people" of the area and sings the very lovely "The Things I Want". Elizabeth Patterson is always an asset to a movie and has one of her larger film roles here as the tough but loving grandmother and terrific comic support is supplied by William Frawley (who has also has a good song number at the wedding) and Ben Blue.HIGH WIDE AND HANDSOME appears to have been only a modest success at the box office and is one of the least seen Irene Dunne films, as of early 2011 I don't believe it's ever aired on a cable network nor has it ever been released on video or DVD. While not a classic and not without it's flaws (the oil saga with good guys fighting powerful villains has perhaps been done in too many old films and the surprise heroes of the final reel give a rather absurd touch to the climax) it deserves to be seen and it's excellent songs and performances and beautiful set design and cinematography make it a quite memorable movie musical.

david-1976 Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern had already made theatre history with "Show Boat," a deathless example of American Theatre, which is still best preserved by Universal's 1935 production, directed by James Whale (now remembered for "Frankenstein"), a wonderful movie that is also the most perfect representation of Irene Dunne, who is amazing in the role of Magnolia. Every time I watch it, I am blown away by the work of the entire cast, which includes many of the staples of the American stage.The following year, Paramount hired Kern and Hammerstein to write them a movie, and indeed, the pair came through, writing some great songs for Dunne to sing, and, on the part of Hammerstein, coming up with a script that can't help but remind the literate of "Oklahoma!" in many ways. It also generated two of Kern's most lovely songs: "Can I Forget You?" and the perennial favorite--of singers if not of audiences--"The Folks Who Live On the Hill".This show is interesting in many ways: one, it takes Dunne back to an earlier time--the 'teens of the twentieth century--in her interpretations, especially of "The Folks Who Live on the Hill," where she elaborately rolls her "r's" and sings in an elaborately formalized manner. It also fails to provide her with an adequate male singing lead, which she certainly had in Allan Jones with "Show Boat."The story presages the ideas that Hammerstein brought to full bloom in his other masterpiece, "Oklahoma" (Masterpiece number one being "Show Boat".) The archetypes are all there: Irene Dunne as Laurie/Magnolia, Randy Scott as Curly (not the weak male lead required by Edna Ferber), Dorothy Lamour as a somewhat muted Ado Annie/Queenie, Charles Bickford as Jud/Frank, Dorothy Patterson as a peppy Aunt Eller/Parthy, Raymond Walburn as a textually removed but otherwise enjoyable Ali Hakim/Captain Andy (although what could go wrong with Charles Winninger in that role?). Add to that Alan Hale as the supremely evil railroad magnate--any comparison would be a stretch, and this is a perfect example of playing against type for Hale, the consummate cheerful sidekick--and you have a delightful Hollywood ensemble company, and I have neglected to mention the beloved Ben Blue, who probably parallels Rubber Face/Will Parker.Talk to me sometime about my ideas anent archetypes: it's for sure--at least as far as I'm concerned--that Hammerstein had some definite "slots" in his scripts not only for particular actors but also for particular characters, and you can find them in subsequent hits like "South Pacific" and "The Sound of Music."My print of "High, Wide and Handsome" was evidently videotaped off a television broadcast: the result is a posterized version whose commercial breaks were edited out; nonetheless, it is a pretty good representation of the film; I don't think that much was missing. Rouben Mamoulian, one of the great directors of film ("Love Me Tonight") and Broadway ("Carousel," need I say more?) added many of his signature effects to this movie, which also may have had some influence from John Ford, but the latter is something I'm flashing on, and I'm not sure what! Please see this sui generis film: it's not a copy of a Broadway hit; it was designed, as were many of Mamoulian's productions, as a film to be appreciated on its own.Paramount should re-release this movie, in the most pristine version available. There are aspects of it that are antiquated, especially since two years later Hollywood brought us "Gone With the Wind" and "The Wizard of Oz," with all their technical accomplishments; but as a musical film achievement, there is a distinctive place for "High, Wide, and Handsome."

bkoganbing Irene Dunne had the good fortune in her singing films to have one of the greatest of American composers writing for her. In her career she did the lead roles in such Jerome Kern classics as Showboat, Roberta, and Sweet Adeline. And also she Kern write songs for the screen for her in Joy of Living and this film High Wide and Handsome. She was for a while known as the Jerome Kern girl of the screen.For reasons I don't understand, except for Showboat she was not given a singing leading man. The story lines were rewritten to give her all the good songs and the leading man none. Not that Donald Woods in Sweet Adeline or Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in Joy of Living or Randolph Scott in Roberta and High Wide and Handsome had any ambitions to sing, but it might have been nice to have her teamed with someone like Allan Jones again as she was in Showboat.High Wide and Handsome is set in western Pennsylvania just after Edwin L. Drake invented the first practical oil derrick to drill for the stuff. Up to that time oil was considered a nuisance at best, a positive calamity at worst for some poor farmer who had the stuff oozing through to his soil. Randolph Scott is such a farmer who has the idea of marketing for heating fuel. Others agree with him including Alan Hale who is in a part normally reserved for Edward Arnold. He's the boss of the railroad and who would be shipping the stuff and at the rate he determines, but him only. Not beaten Scott conceives the idea of the first oil pipeline and then its a fight to the finish with the Hale and the railroad. By the way in real life this is how John D. Rockefeller cornered the oil market and gave the Rockefeller family the wealth it enjoys today.Irene Dunne is in a medicine show that breaks down and she, Raymond Walburn and William Frawley are given shelter by Scott and his grandmother Elizabeth Patterson. Of course the usual boy/girl stuff happens.Scott's an earnest of guy, but a bit of a prude as well. Later on when Dunne aids another entertainer in trouble, Dorothy Lamour, Scott and she break up when he finds the two of them trying to put over an act in a saloon to get her hired.Two very big songs for Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein, II came out of High Wide and Handsome both sung by Dunne, Can I Forget You and The Folks Who Live On The Hill. Again this was a case of one hand washing the other as Paramount no doubt convinced the leading singer in America who by no coincidence was a Paramount contact player to record them and plug them on his radio show. Bing Crosby's records of them are classic and they sold a few platters back in the day. In fact why didn't they have Bing in this film? It certainly had more of a budget than the musicals Paramount was giving him. Other villains in High Wide and Handsome are Charles Bickford and Irving Pichel. Bickford is just a plug ugly who does Hale's dirty work and probably would pay Hale to do it for him as he and Scott hate each other and that's made clear right at the beginning of the film. Irving Pichel plays a strange Puritan type individual, self appointed keeper of the community morals. His was a strangely underdeveloped character in the script that Oscar Hammerstein, II wrote.Rouben Mamoulian who directed his fair share of musicals on screen and on the stage did a good job with his cast. And you can never go wrong listening and singing Jerome Kern's wonderful songs.

drednm High, Wide, and Handsome is a forgotten gem of a movie from 1937. Jermone Kern and Oscar Hammerstein created this sprawling musical adventure for the screen following the popularity of the 1936 film version of their musical, Show Boat, which also starred the great Irene Dunne.Here Dunne plays a singer in a traveling snake oil show run by her father (Raymond Walburn). They bottle "rock oil" and sell it as an elixir. Dunne sings and dances in the show while daddy hawks the tonic. William Frawley plays a fake Indian who is also part of the show. After their wagon burns down, they are taken in by a local farmer (Randolph Scott) and his grandmother (Elizabeth Patterson). Of course Scott and Dunne fall in love, but Scott is sidetracked by his ideas for drilling for oil in 1850s Pennsylvania.Songs, romance, and action combine to make this an unusual film as the couple battles the local bible thumpers as well as the crooked railroad men, led by Alan Hale. Along the way Dunne rescues a saloon singer (Dorothy Lamour) and runs away with a traveling circus. They pack a lot of story into this 112-minute film.Dunne is, as always, a total pleasure to watch. She gets to sing almost all the songs in this musical (Scott never sings) and duets with Lamour on "Allegheny Al." The best song is the wonderful "The Folks Who Live on the Hill," which Dunne sings in closeup with a gentle breeze rustling apple blossoms and her lace bonnet. Scott is good in a role usually played by Joel McCrea, but Scott and Dunne have good chemistry. They also worked together in Roberta and My Favorite Wife. Supporting cast is fine, headed by Patterson as the feisty grandmother, Walburn as the father, Frawley as the Indian (he also gets a number), Ben Blue as a mute, Lamour as the dumb-cluck who sings "The Things I Want" in fabulous close-up, Hale as the corrupt railroad man, Helen Lowell as a gossip, Irving Pichel as the bible thumper, and Akim Tamiroff as the saloon owner. Also of note is Charles Bickford is the bully. Bickford had starred with Dunne is the previous No Other Woman. Worth looking for.