Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

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

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Spoilers. Observations. Opinions. Ruby does not dance. I love dancing. Lose a point. Black and white. Lose another point. Balance eight out of ten possible points. This means that the film rates pretty high, however. Powell could sing. Ruby could also, better than I expected, but of course no famous warbler like Powell. I wanted Ruby to dance when she, as the general, has all the men gathered around her desk. No dice. She does not. Oh, well. Dick is pretty rude in much of this film. He needed his ears boxed by Scrapper. He keeps getting away with wrong things. He is Mr. Teflon. Lots of things bounce right off him. Wrongdoings just don't give him much comeuppance. Worse for me, yet, is when Powell went from musicals to dramas and gumshoe boring filmic outings. The Powell of 42nd Street fades from fun juvenile to wallflower aged oldster sexless senior citizen, it seems like. I saw Ross Alexander in Midsummer Night's Dream. Was Powell also in that? Anyway, in real life Alexander later calls an end to his own life. This is such a shame. Ross is a lot of fun in Flirtation Walk. This film was Great Depression era. Audiences needed cheering up. Besides all of the serious parts of this story, the cadets are tasked with putting on an annual show. Did I hear Ruby talk about The New Deal?The characters were in military training for some future war; 1941 and Pearl Harbor wouldn't be here for awhile. Powell early on is regular enlisted, trying to move up through the ranks the old- fashioned way. He then goes to West Point, however, and through hard work strives to become an officer and a gentleman. Scrapper has predicted Powell will eventually outrank him, and this is what happens. The show: I knew that the second I heard about the 100th Night Show, I remembered the 1950 film outing called West Point Story, starring James Cagney, Doris Day, Gordon MacRae, Virginia Mayo, Gene Nelson and Alan Hale, Jr. Jimmy, a volatile washed-up Broadway director and dancer, gets roped into traveling to West Point and training the students to do the annual 100th Night Show. Doris and MacRae sing about the Kissing Rock, and Gene Nelson does some great tap dancing. Hale is dressed up like a huge woman, and Jimmy does an awesome tap dance when Gene gets injured. Therefore, part of 1950 West Point Story I feel is some sort of remake of 1934 Flirtation Walk, 16 years earlier. One is pre-war, and one is post-World War Two, with a little of the Korean War Era thrown in. I am a degreed historian from the university, studies including military history and history of war. I am also an actress, dancer, singer, makeup artist, fashion designer, film critic and movie reviewer. I study the lives of actors and actresses. I have written almost 400 IMDb reviews since 2002.

With hindsight,"flirtation walk" appears as a blueprint for "shipmates forever"(and even ,so to speak for "Blue Hawai" in which Elvis played a discharged soldier mind you).Like the 1935 (shall we say "sequel"?)work,it features the same actors and it's the most distressingly mediocre movie by one of the greatest directors of the era."Flirtation walk " pales into insignificance when compared to "no greater glory" "little man what now?" "three comrades" "mortal storm" "young America" "stranded" "big city" .....and I don't even mention the masterpieces of the silent era !Borzage epitomized greatness ,and perhaps are we too demanding ?There is a good idea,the play a la "Hamlet" or how to get a message of love through.However,Borzage 's touch is nowhere to be seen in this umpteenth version of "I shall become an officer and a gentleman".If you want to see a good patriotic movie by Borzage,do choose " stage door canteen" in which the characters are made of flesh and blood.

Some good songs, good cast. Dick Powell handles most of the singing, sounding great as always, even in Hawaiian. Pat O'Brien is enjoyable in a familiar role as the tough guy with a heart of gold. Biggest disappointment of the whole movie is no dancing by the lovely Ruby Keeler. What were they thinking? The movie is very different from the 42nd Street-Footlight Parade-Golddiggers musicals that the Powell/Keeler team is most famous for, and if you expect to see that type of movie, you might be disappointed. I love them in those movies, but I also enjoyed this as something different. It would be nice to see this movie released as part of a DVD box set to complement the great Busby Berkley set released in early 2006.

FLIRTATION WALK (First National, 1934) directed by Frank Borzage, teams Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler for the fifth time, and the first to present their names above the title. When released in November 1934, this sentimental musical-comedy was so successful that it was nominated for an Academy Award for best picture, along with eleven (yes, 11!) other movies that year, but no win. The predictable plot begins in Hawaii in which Powell plays Army Private Richard Palmer Grant Dorcy, better known as "Canary," who meets and falls in love with General John Brent Fitt's (Henry O'Neill) daughter Kit (Ruby Keeler) on a two day visit at the base. Kit happens to be engaged to Lt. Robert Biddle (John Eldredge), but she doesn't care. She gets Dick to take her out for a moonlight drive, and they are later are caught embracing by Biddle. Fearing Dick would get court martialed, Kit discourages and cures the lovesick private before she leaves Hawaii. Determined to forget Kit and become an officer and a gentleman, Dick decides to leave Hawaii and enroll at West Point. After more than three years at the military academy, and close to graduation, Dick encounters Kit once more. (Her father is stationed there as the new superintendent). Dick then tries to ignore Kit and give her a hard time, but risks getting a dismissal from the academy when caught embracing Kit once more in her quarters by Biddle.Pat O'Brien co-stars as Scrapper Thornhill, Dick's sergeant in the first half of the story set in Hawaii, while Ross Alexander and John Arledge appear as the cadets in the second half set at West Point. Alexander, the one with the physical appearance of dancer Ray Bolger, supplies some fine comic touches here. Directed by two-time Academy Award winning director, Frank Borzage, FLIRTATION WALK focuses more on plot than musical interludes. Powell sings a little, but tap dancer Keeler does not do any fancy footwork here. There are no real lavish production numbers to speak of, with the exception of a Hawaiian luau some 20 minutes into of the story. The 15 minute segment of the Hundredth Night Show at West Point consists of songs by Allie Wrubel and Mort Dixon: "No Horse, No Wife, No Mustache," the lively and amusing "Mr. and Mrs. Is the Name" and the title song. Aside from scenes filmed in Hawaii and West Point, light comedy, sentimental moments and good tunes, Dick and Ruby are believable their roles, while Pat O'Brien, as a tough sergeant, isn't afraid to shed a tear, especially during Dick's West Point graduation. Quite different from the previous Powell and Keeler musicals, from Broadway theater setting to military background, which actually works to good advantage, although there is too much time devoted to plebe year and Powell reciting the definition of "Leather."FLIRTATION WALK was distributed on video cassette through MGM Home Video in 1992, and can be seen on the Turner Classic Movies cable channel. One final note: Although it's been said that future film star Tyrone Power appears as one of the extra cadets, he is so hard to find. (****)