Film Perfection

The acting in this movie is really good.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Warners borrowed Jane Powell from MGM in 1953 and put her in a Doris Day kind of role, as an up- and-coming Broadway leading lady starring in Sam Levene's not-very-integrated-looking musical. Together they charm sailors Gordon MacRae, Gene Nelson, and Jack E. Leonard (trying to be Jackie Gleason, the Fat Funny One) into investing, and turn an out-of-town flop into a Broadway smash. Not an original story by any means, but it's lively, and the Sammy Fain-Sammy Cahn songs are good. It seems stinting of the screenwriters not to write in a girlfriend for Nelson, who has two spectacular tap numbers, and the no-name supporting characters (Georges Givot as a temperamental Ezio Pinza-like basso, somebody else as the sarcastic secretary, somebody else as the doofus playwright) don't have much interesting to do. But the songs and dances are really lively, and it's a chance to see Levene playing a Nathan Detroit-like schemer at the top of his form. MGM was making better musicals, even Warners was, but this one's an unpretentious good time.

For an old much recycled plot, this ain't too bad. Both a retread of the sailors on leave in the big apple plot and the George S. Kaufman play "Butter and Egg Man", this is a slightly above average musical with a talented cast and a few good songs. Three sailors on leave are conned into investing their money (and their pals) in a Broadway show. Producer Sam Levene is your typical New York shyster who has no idea of what he's doing so the sailors take over. Handsome Gordon MacRae falls for leading lady Jane Powell, while rotund Jack Leonard clowns and Gene Nelson dances. The show they do could be called "This is the Navy" but ends up becoming too technical so some well known Broadway personalities come in to doctor the show.The silliness of the plot is topped by some of the musical numbers (by Sammy Fain and Sammy Cahn), most outrageously one ("I Got Butterflies") sung and danced in an auto shop utilizing much of the equipment. Powell has an amusing comedy number, "Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me (Or I'll Scream!"). Leonard comes off as a combination of Lou Costello and Jackie Gleason and tries too hard to be cute. Powell and Leonard do get to perform the amusing "Show Me a Happy Woman (and I'll Show You a Miserable Man)". That favorite tough girl Veda Ann Borg has some amusing lines. A fan favorite of the time has a cameo at the end with a hilarious reference. Overall, this is better than some of Warner Brothers' non-Doris Day musical numbers, thanks to the actress loaned to MGM for the occasion.

You might as well have brought out Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland for this one. Sailors on leave get involved with Jane Powell in staging a Broadway show. There is even an over extending of the percentage owned by the show. This was certainly to the 1968 smash "The Producers."Jack E. Leonard is in fine form as Porky, a portly sailor who can really dance and do some singing. Gordon McRae is Choir Boy and he is equally matched with Gene Nelson.The song and dance routines are solid by the plot is so predictable and worn out already in movies.Thirty days of shore leave for the navy guys. They should have extended the leave for the entire picture.

Warner Brothers musical Three Sailors And A Girl is based, very loosely based I might add on the George S. Kaufman play The Butter And Egg Man that ran on Broadway during the Twenties. It was one of Kaufman's earliest successes and one he did without a collaborator, unusual for him. It was the Navy participation in this film that was original.Otherwise the plot has some down and out producer suckering a country yokel out of a lot of money to produce his show. In the film, the yokel is a sailor played by Gordon MacRae with a stern sense of morality, rather unusual for someone in the Navy. The crew has been on active duty for almost a year and their back pay which they've been unable to spend amounts to a considerable nest egg. While on Wall Street looking for an investment, MacRae, Gene Nelson, and Jack E. Leonard run into producer Sam Levene and he gets the boys to invest in his show. And the attraction is leading lady Jane Powell who falls for Gordon big time.No big hits come from the score written by Sammy Fain and Sammy Cahn, but the numbers are serviceable to the plot. MacRae and Powell make a good team musically, too bad they were at different studios and didn't do more films together, Powell was on loan from MGM. Gene Nelson was as always great in the dance numbers, I've said it before on other of his films I've reviewed, he came along ten years too late, what a really big dancing star he would have been.Jack E. Leonard was an early version of Don Rickles. I remember seeing him many times on the Ed Sullivan Show as a kid. His character was interesting, but too bad we didn't get one of his insult monologues for which he was so famous.Part of the plot involves MacRae taking over the show and making a holy hash of it and Jane Powell calling in George Abbott, Ira Gershwin, and Moss Hart to contribute their talents to save the show. The real people weren't in Three Sailors And A Girl, just actors playing them. But as the show originated with George S. Kaufman, had all these people put their talents into this film for real, we might have seen a real classic unfold.The mind boggles at the possibility.