ThiefHott Too much of everything

Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

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

writers_reign This was arguably the last of the 'all-star' spectaculars generated by the second world war and alas it ranks a bad nowhere to such admittedly ho hum entries as Hollywood Canteen and Thank Your Lucky Stars. On the plus side buffs will welcome the chance to see Frank Ferguson in a rare leading role and whilst it's true than many of the Paramount 'names' are wasted there is the odd moment - Ray Milland answers the phone in his dressing room by removing it from the porcelain bowl below the ceiling light and Alad Ladd reveals a pleasant singing voice in Frank Loesser's Tallahassee - it would, of course, have been a 'natural' to have seen Ladd teamed with frequent co-star Veronica Lake in something but the studio had let her go the year before. Worth a look but that's about all.

jotix100 "Variety Girl", a film from 1947, showed up recently on cable. The film, which takes the theme of the Variety Club, which was a charitable organization involving well known movie people, is an excuse for showcasing the talent players employed by the studio. Paramount was at the time one of the most powerful places in which movies were made. As such, the idea behind this picture was to show how united and family-like the studio was.The story is paper thin. It presents an implausible situation about two young women trying to make it in the movie industry. They, like thousand other hopefuls, attracted by the glamour of Hollywood came to Los Angeles in droves to be discovered. This is exactly what Katherine Brown and Amber Lavonne try to do with amazing results.The fun in watching "Variety Girl" is recognizing stars, larger than life, being caught in the act of being themselves. Thus, we see the likes of Alan Ladd, Dorothy Lamour, Burt Lancaster, Lizabeth Scott, Barbara Stanwych, Gary Cooper, William Holden, William Bendix, and many others involved in either the show that takes the center of the story, or just around the studio, mixing with colleagues and extras.The funniest sequence involved Olga San Juan, who plays Amber, emoting to the high heavens just to be noticed by the many diners at the Brown Derby. Also the singing duo of Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in their rendition of Harmony.This is just an entertainment as conceived by the studio, no doubt. The best way to watch it is just to do so without expecting anything other than a smile. That way it will not disappoint.

bkoganbing I've said this often enough. There is no way I will ever give a film like this a bad review. Just an unregenerate stargazer I guess.The demise of the studio system makes this kind of film impossible now. You couldn't possibly afford to pay all the talented people here what they would be worth on the open market. But when they're all working at Paramount studios at the time, such films are possible.The thin plot of this film is that young Mary Hatcher who back as an infant was left in a movie theater and adopted by the managers of several theaters. She became a project for them and the cause of why they founded the Variety Club Charitable Foundation.Mary's grown up now and has aspirations to be an actress. She goes to Paramount where Frank Ferguson is now a big wig. She and a goofy friend Olga San Juan get everyone confused as to who is who. Especially young DeForest Kelley who is a Paramount talent scout.Both Hatcher and Kelley were pretty unknown at the time. Hatcher had in fact come from Broadway and the original production of Oklahoma where she had replaced Joan Roberts in the lead. This was DeForest Kelley and it was only his second film. But I seem to remember he got a big break a little less than 20 years later playing a futuristic doctor on some science fiction show.But this is really just an excuse to have all the Paramount name talent strut their stuff. One interesting sequence was one where Alan Ladd hijacks an airliner and in the midst of a dramatic scene bursts into song with Dorothy Lamour about the capital city of Florida, Tallahassee. Ladd had a pleasant, if not great singing voice and I'm sure he loved the opportunity to spoof his own hardboiled image.Gary Cooper made an obligatory appearance and this turned out to be his farewell appearance with Paramount, the studio that discovered and developed him.Of course heading the cast were the two that really kept Paramount in the black in those days, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. Bing was in the midst of a five year run as the nation's number one box office attraction. And in 1949 he would be succeeded by one Bob Hope. They have a duet called Harmony in which the rest of the cast joins in at the finale.Curiously enough Bing only recorded Tallahassee and with the Andrews Sisters. Why he and Hope didn't do Harmony on record is a mystery to me.Just about everyone on the lot but Betty Hutton got into this one. I wonder where she was?

Cajun-4 There's plenty of stars in this homage to Variety clubs international but precious little entertainment. A poor script and shoddy production values make this movie look as though it was shot over weekends on whatever sets happened to be available. Painful to sit through at times with dated comedy routines that were probably not very funny even at the time. Of the performers Pearl Bailey does a not bad musical number, and Bing Crosby and Bob Hope come the closest to being funny.