While on leave, sailor Ted Barker meets Nora Paige at the Lonely Hearts Club, which is owned by Jenny Saks, the wife of fellow sailor Gunny Saks. Ted instantly falls in love with Nora.[1][2][3]
Ted later meets Broadway star Lucy James aboard a submarine while she's on a publicity tour. Her Pekingese dog falls overboard, Ted rescues it, and Lucy falls in love with him. Though Ted has already scheduled a date with Nora, he is ordered by his captain, Dingby, to meet Lucy in a nightclub.[2][3]
Nora, who lives with Jenny and her daughter, Sally, aspires to become a Broadway dancer. However, her newfound career is in serious jeopardy when she inadvertently comes between Lucy and her boss McKay. Nora distances herself from Ted after seeing pictures of him and Lucy in a newspaper the next morning.[1][2][3]
Lucy convinces McKay to stop the press campaign, threatening to leave the Broadway production if any more photos or articles about her and Ted are published. Nora becomes Lucy's understudy and thinks about her behavior towards Ted. Nora gets fired suddenly after McKay tells her to perform a dance that Lucy considers undanceable. But Ted knows exactly what to do after he's told the whole story.[2][3]
In the score during the "Rolling Home" number; Also in the score during the "Swingin' the Jinx Away" number and partially sung by the chorus
The Prisoner's Song (If I Had the Wings of an Angel) (1924)
Music and Lyrics by Guy Massey
In the underscore when 'Gunny' Saks is shown in the brig
Production
The film's working title was This Time It's Love.
The film stars dancer Eleanor Powell and was a follow-up to her successful debut in Broadway Melody of 1936. The film co-stars James Stewart as Powell's love interest and Virginia Bruce as the film's resident femme fatale and Powell's rival. Powell's Broadway Melody co-stars Buddy Ebsen and Frances Langford return to provide comedy and musical support. Highlights of the film include a rare musical number by Stewart (which the actor later poked fun at in the That's Entertainment! retrospective), and a bombastic finale called "Swingin' the Jinx Away". Set amidst a pre-Second World Warnaval backdrop, the Depression-era "feel good" number (which runs nearly 10 minutes) makes topical references to the economy and political leaders (with a "shout out" to Cab Calloway thrown in for good measure) sung by Powell, adds in an eccentric dance routine by Ebsen, and ends in a flurry of tap dancing by Powell culminating in a patriotic salute, and finally a blast of cannon fire. This finale was also lifted in its entirety and re-used in another Powell film, I Dood It, co-starring Red Skelton. Although considered one of Powell's (and MGM's) most memorable musical numbers, and often featured in retrospectives such as That's Entertainment!, musical director Roger Edens was often quoted as being embarrassed by the segment.
In 1936, a part was written for Judy Garland. Cole Porter wrote in his diary that it was his "great Joy" that he was writing for a film featuring Garland. However, her part was written out of the film before she could begin any work on the film.
Some of the musical numbers were recorded in stereophonic sound, making this one of the first films to utilize multi-channel technology. Rhino Records included the stereo tracks in its soundtrack album, released on CD, including Jimmy Stewart's and Marjorie Lane's performance of "You'd Be So Easy to Love."[7]
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