Three Little Words

This film didn't try to do much more than bring us the songs. And that was good. It was wildly anachronistic -- the early number with Astaire and Vera Ella was danced to jazz that had to be some 15 or 20 years later than the date of the film, which at that point would be early 1920s, the age of the Turkey Trot, when bands were still coming out from their military origins. But the later sequence in the capacious ballroom of the ocean liner to "Thinking of You" was lovely. And the shot of the liner was the Normandie, wasn't it? Queen Mary was a four stacker. Vera Ella was a wonderfully acrobatic dancer. Al Schacht WAS a pitcher -- for 3 years (1919-21) for the Senators. The poster who said he was a catcher may have been thinking of Ray Schalk, a hall of fame catcher for the White Sox (including the 1919 nine, though not implicated in the throwing of the Series). And Barris, Rinker, and Bing sang with Paul Whiteman, not Duke Ellington. The MGM color in the 40s and 50s was magnificent -- and this film shows it off superbly. This one is a very enjoyable musical, one of the best of a period that produced some great ones.