... with soundies being, basically, the music videos of the 1940s.
The film has a warning for audiences with the first line. A couple of late night semi inebriated celebrants are trying to get into a nightclub but find it is locked. A guy working on the marquee outside tells them - to paraphrase - "Don't go in there! Those people are crazy!" The noise inside is a late night jam session for crazy people only, led by lounge singer Petey Brown (Ida Lupino). This whole scene is just a set up for Petey saying she is going to California to visit her family, all who have issues, and the issues extend to the neighbors. Among the issues is a post-war baby boom, a cheating wife, a WWII veteran hospitalized with PTSD, Petey's brother looking for a way to make quick easy dough, and a young woman who does not want to leave the house (this is more like a problem commonly seen today). Involved with some of these issues is slippery nightclub owner, Nicky Toresca (Robert Alda), from whom Petey gets a job as a lounge singer on her extended visit.
A big portion of the film actually has something to do with the title - While on the west coast Petey meets a washed-up jazz musician, San Thomas (Bruce Bennett???), who is washed up exactly because he is still in love with his ex-wife, being dumped has sapped his creativity and drive, and he has taken to being a seaman on commercial lines to support himself. For some reason this emotionally and geographically unavailable person is the man of Petey's dreams. Meanwhile her boss Toresca is trying to have an affair with her and about half a dozen other women. Complications and hepcat dialogue I could barely decipher ensue.
To judge this thing on its narrative structure would be a mistake. It meanders incoherently from scene to scene and the plot seems to be held together with spit and bailing wire. But that atmosphere, those jazz musical numbers and jam sessions, that post-war boom and the women with fashions that look like something you would wear on a dare with wide shoulder pads and covered in furs with hats to match. It is like stepping into a time machine.
I'd recommend this one, but as for the plot, don't ask questions just go with it.
