Best movie of this year hands down!

That was an excellent one.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

"Spring is Here" was a modest (not a flop) Rodgers and Hart Broadway musical of 1929 (109 performances) in which the song "With a Song in My Heart" became a standard but the film version of 1930 didn't even rate a Broadway opening - it had it's "gala" world premiere in Toledo, Ohio!!How could it fail? It starred the gorgeous musical team of Bernice Claire and Alexander Gray who had been such a hit in the recent film musical "No, No, Nanette", another Gray, Lawrence, fresh from "Marianne" and "Sunny" had a pleasant tenor and comics Inez Courtney and Louise Fazenda, plus some very hummable early song hits. But by 1930 cinema patrons were starting to rebel against any film with a misplaced song after a steady diet of dizzy films filled with mediocre music. While this movie had wonderful songs, the plot, in which Owen Davis (author of "Whoopee") adapted from his unsuccessful play "Shotgun Wedding" was just too frivolous for the now sombre tone of the depression.It starts with the blustering Peter Braley (Ford Sterling) berating his fun loving daughter Betty (Claire, wearing a very becoming hair style) for staying out till 5 in the morning with mysterious new boyfriend, Steve Alden (Lawrence Grey). There has already been a snappy musical number with Inez Courtney and Frank Albertson bemoaning the fact that by the time Mary Jane is old enough for parties - they will be extinct!! Frank then informs her to cheer up because "Spring is Here - in Person"!! Light hearted the script may be but they still have time to discuss just how female embryos come into being as well as wondering when a "morning after" pill will come into existence!!When Terry, Betty's long suffering boyfriend comes on the scene, it's obvious why she prefers the lively Steve - Terry (Alexander Gray) is as dumb as they make them!!! Her father forces an engagement and Betty is livid. Steve is "up to date and gives a girl a thrill" according to Betty. Terry thinks, given the chance he could be the same. He tries to convey his thoughts in "Yours Sincerely" with Claire putting her melodious stamp on the song! Mary Jane gives him more sensible advice via the song "Bad Baby" - romance another girl, preferably the vampish Miss Carewe (Natalie Moorehead) to make Betty jealous. He tries it out at the party that night, the Brox Sisters being on hand to sing "Crying for the Carolines". The song proved the big hit of the movie probably because of the superior and more soulful version recorded by Ruth Etting. Before the night is over Betty and Steve have tunefully duetted to "With a Song In My Heart", Betty has posed the question to the stars "How Shall I Tell" and Terry has implored her with the plaintively earnest "Have a Little Faith in Me". For all Lawrence Gray's top billing he goes missing from the last half with the focus definitely on Terry's quest to live life with a kick in it!!Steve returns in the morning with a minister but in a very pre-code scene, Betty greets her father at her bedroom door with a disheveled Terry - could they have spent the night together without the benefit of clergy!! No!! as the minister questions why is he needed to marry this girl when he already performed the service the night before!! Stacy (Albertson) returns and he and Mary Jane perform the liveliest song in the film "What's the Big Idea" complete with an eccentric dance. Inez Courtney reprised her role from the original Broadway production.A very fun movie with the plot just a framework to present some songs - but what songs they were!! And Bernice Claire is so adorably ravishing, you will not be able to keep your eyes off her!!Highly Recommended.

SPRING IS HERE is a charming curio that is a bit more fascinating than it is good entertainment but it's that too. This is one of the first movie musicals to have been a film version of a Broadway musical, an early semi-success for Richard Rodgers and Lorenzo Hart. The most interesting thing to me is that while the songs are quite nice (though they are mostly indistinguishable love songs, with the notable exception of the outstanding classic "With a Song in My Heart"), the "book" (story) is the highpoint, thanks to lots of really funny wisecracks and some racy "adult" situations that are quintessential late 1920s/early 1930s Manhattan humor.Coquette Bernice Claire sneaks back home at 5 am, having abandoned both the party she attended and her longtime dullish boyfriend Alexander Gray after meeting the jazzier Lawrence Gray there. Father Ford Sterling is outraged at this new "beau", a stranger who would keep his daughter out all night and tries to push her bland boyfriend into marrying her. Bernice however will have none of it with a new man to consider. Her "kid" sister Inez Courtney (allegedly 16 and, as has been mentioned, looking quite into adulthood) has sympathy for Alexander and tells him the way to get her back is to become a romantic cad and flirt with other women. That night at the family's party, Alexander reluctantly follows this advice and kisses and flirts with practically every woman at the party (including, most outrageously, Bernice's bird-brained mom Louise Fazenda). He does manages to invoke Bernice's jealousy but then Lawrence shows up and manages to still hold her attention.This little movie (barely over an hour) is cute little musical but it's certainly imperfect and while an "early" musical, it was not one of the first ones (movie musicals had been around already for a year in 1930) for some of it's flaws to be dismissed. Most annoying is the movie is almost completely filmed as if it were a stage musical, with performers usually facing toward the camera rather than toward each other in love songs!! Lawrence Gray gets top billing here apparently because he had the most film experience of the young leads (including the male lead in lone Duncan Sisters feature musical, IT'S A GREAT LIFE) but his part is decidedly secondary to Alexander Gray and Bernice Claire's and he is rather miscast as a "fascinating" stranger, if anything he's duller than Alexander. Alexander Gray looks a lot like contemporary actor Aidan Quinn with a touch of James Cagney. He's better looking than his rival and gives a good performance as the bashful beau, alas while his singing is good he unfortunately twists his mouth into strange shapes while singing which is quite distracting. Bernice Claire has a lovely voice but her character is kind of a brat which is a mistake for a romantic lead I don't think Rodgers & Hart ever repeated again. Veteran comedienne Louise Fazenda spouts her lines with an affected ring perhaps to suggest simple-mindedness and it does get to be a bit much at time.The movie is stolen by silent comic sidekick Ford Sterling as the patriarch of this family of femmes, he's hilarious and much more appealing in the type of put-up middle-aged man that Edgar Kennedy would play in scores of movies. Sterling is so terrific in this it should have led to a major career as a supporting character actor in talkies. SPRING IS HERE is no classic but absolutely worth checking out for fans of the art deco era, movie musicals, Rodgers & Hart, and silent-era comedians and holds up as entertainment a little better than most musicals from 1929-1931 despite it's imperfections.

This is a film with some witty dialog and good songs that make this very interesting to watch. This is the story of a controlling father who thrusts a bashful suitor Terry Clayton (Alexander Gray) onto his daughter Betty Braley (Bernice Clare) when she is interested in Steve Alden (Lawrence Gray). Terry hatches a plan to win back Betty with the help her sister Mary Jane who advises him to make Betty jealous by making romance with another woman. The trick works. When Betty's father banishes Alden from coming into the house, he comes to elope with Betty but Terry intervenes and carries her off for himself. John Frances directed this film and it was written by James Starr, which was based on a Broadway musical. There are some good songs that are worth listening to; "Have a little faith in me," "Crying for the Carolines." "What's the biog idea," and "Bad baby?"

Actually, the songs for this film; Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder (For Somebody Else), Bad Baby, Cryin' For The Carolines, Have A Little Faith In Me, How Shall I Tell?, What's The Big Idea? were not written by R&H but by Harry Warren. This was Harry's big break into Hollywood songwriting for the silver screen. Due to the success of his music in this film, Harry Warren was brought out to Hollywood for a second film, "42nd Street", which is by and large considered to be the "grand daddy of all musicals". Harry then left Tin Pan Alley, and signed on to write the music for another 32 Warner Brothers films. Many of these were co-written with Al Dubin, and then later on with Johnny Mercer.In the end, this was the first film that Harry wrote music for. He went on to be the most successful songwriter in Hollywood, and that success propelled him to the top of the pop charts as well, writing 81 top ten hits, along with eleven Oscar nominations for best song.