Honolulú

MGM musical with several unusual assets: For one thing, it's unpretentious, and for another, it has a genuinely diverting screenplay, co-written by Herb Fields, an old hand at musical comedy librettos (he wrote a number of Rodgers and Hart hits). The unremarkable but serviceable plot has Robert Young double-cast as a fan-harassed movie star and a pineapple farmer who trade places, and movie-star-posing-as-farmer falls for Eleanor Powell, who's starring in a Honolulu floor show and accompanied by sidekick Gracie Allen. Gracie's material isn't up to standard, and George has practically nothing to do, and Powell's charms seldom went far beyond the Terpsichorean. But she does have a couple of fine solos, and the Harry Warren-Gus Kahn songs are agreeable. It's typically racially insensitive, with Eleanor doing a blackface salute to Bill Robinson not unlike Astaire's in "Swing Time," and the standard giggling-Asian-servant thing going on. Nevertheless, it's so modest and entertaining, I was surprised how much I enjoyed it.