the audience applauded

Admirable film.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Between 1939 and 1942, Donald O'Connor had left Paramount and went back to vaudeville. Then he signed with Universal with his first picture there being What's Cookin'. This was his second and like his previous one, he appeared with another teen named Peggy Ryan. They do a slight pantomime here during an instrumental break in The Andrews Sisters number, "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree". Also during that song, Shemp Howard gets hit and slapped by at least one of those sisters. He also gets a few from Mary Wickes as his on-off girlfriend. Also appearing here is Huntz Hall-outside of The East Side Kids-who has trouble training Harry James the bugle (This sequence I found a little lame unlike the other ones I just mentioned). There's also some romantic subplot but never mind about that. Just enjoy the music and some of the comedy bits and you should enjoy Private Buckaroo just fine.

PRIVATE BUCKAROOS is the only one of the starring films of that forties phenomenon The Andrews Sisters that is easy to see today since it apparently fell into public domain and is available in a number of budget collections. Despite their star billing, the Andrews gals actually run a somewhat distant fourth in screen time to Dick Foran, Shemp Howard, and Harry James, not coming into the film until about the second reel and then their contributions limited to only four or five song numbers. They are a joy to see though and this perky musical from the early days of WWII completely captures the patriotism and spirit of the era.Running only a few minutes over a hour, this B musical barely has time for a storyline and what's there is slim. Big band singer Dick Foran is upset because he is repeatedly turned down in his attempts to enlists because of having flat feet. He somehow gets "cured" by a doctor and quickly enlist and then in an inexplicable personality change proves to be the spoiled show biz boy while in training, whining about regulations and duties. Hunky blond Foran is quite appealing in most of his other films but in this one his character is obnoxious and frankly the "change" to good joe is as sudden and incredible as the shift in personality once he is enlisted. The music in this modest film is unsurprisingly excellent with the Andrews, Foran, and Harry James & Orchestra but there's so much of it it actually makes the film seem longer. There's some excellent comedy relief from Shemp Howard, Joe E. Lewis, and especially the magnificent Mary Wickes as Shemp's belligerent stringbean of a girlfriend. Miss Wickes is a much loved character actress of course but it's wonderful to see her here in one of her larger early roles and proving to be a splendid knockabout comedienne in the Joan Davis mold. I frankly would have much rather the screenwriters (somebody apparently did write this despite the limited acting scenes) have concentrated on the wacky romantic triangle of Howard, Wickes, and Lewis than a conventional and extremely thin Foran - Jennifer Holt romance that doesn't ring true for a minute. The ending is so sudden one feels almost as if a reel or two is missing from the film but it's very effective in a way in illustrating how quickly things happened in the hectic years of WWII.

Private Buckaroo, a high-energy, patriotic movie from 1942, has two uses now. The first is to show us the optimism of our elders as they readied themselves to support the troops fighting in WWII. Sure, the jokes are corny, but the musical numbers crank up the confidence with everything from "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree" to "Six Jerks in a Jeep." It's not a bad idea to now and then remind ourselves of what an older generation of Americans were facing. The second use of the movie is to provide fodder for all those graduate students eager for an easy doctorate in "American Popular Culture," a phenomenon that proves, if the money is right, that American universities will offer degrees in just about anything. The barest of plots has Harry James being drafted. Naturally, his whole orchestra signs up, too, including Lon Prentice (Dick Foran), his singer who has an attitude adjustment problem. We see the high-jinks of training, a romantic encounter that will serve to straighten Prentice out, and a big show just before the boys ship overseas. All this is just a clothesline to pin on at least 13 musical numbers, and The Andrews Sisters and Harry James do most of them. The comedy intermissions are several. To give you an idea of what Universal's writers were capable of, the three-way romantic laugh relief involves Bonnie-Belle Schlopkiss (a tall and emphatic Mary Wickes), Sergeant Muggsy Sharell (Shemp Howard, who was earlier and later became again one of the Three Stooges) and Lancelot Pringle McBiff (an odd incarnation of stand up comic Joe E. Lewis). Personally, I enjoyed most Huntz Hall as a corporal trying to teach James how to play reveille. Although some people today can pass by The Andrews Sisters because of their style, particularly Patty Andrews' mugging, the three were expert at close harmony. They have six numbers; all are skillfully delivered with a great deal of verve. As far as Harry James goes, I can't think of a better way to open a movie than James and Helen Forrest giving us the full treatment of "You Made Me Love You." And in one showstopper we have The Jivin' Jacks and Jills, a group of dancing teen-agers formed by Universal to showcase the studio's young talent. The ten kids tap and leap all over the stage to "Apple Tree." The fact that the story line is almost non-existent and that romantic lead Dick Foran, who sounds a bit like a cross between Nelson Eddy and Dennis Morgan, has the personality of a cardboard box really doesn't matter at all. Doctoral candidates, start writing your dissertation on "The Underlying Significance of B Movies on the Cultural Development of American Civilization During the Formative Years of World War Two, With an Emphasis on the Influence of Teen-Age Tap Dancers on the Defeat of the Axis."

At just over an hour, this film does not exceed its welcome, despite the acquired taste of the Andrews Sisters. Patti, Laverne and Maxene were perky and certainly had good voices, but their screen personalities are either OTT (Patti) or dull (the others). To carry a film, it just doesn't work.Elsewhere there's Harry James and his Music Makers; Harry gets drafted and the band go with him (even the one with a flat foot), and that's about all the plot is.There's a funny restaurant sketch, and some nice songs and music, and the film passes the time without making the viewer cringe. It is a typical flagwaver, a patriotic morale-booster.Oh, and it has a 16-year old Donald O'Connor, showing a flash of promise of what would come later, along with Peggy Ryan.