Phil Regan, a face for movies and a voice for radio.
- An ideal 10:30 pm movie.
- Swing Parade of 1946 has a lot of dead air. In the moments when it is good, you won't take your eyes off of it.
- The film has an overly complicated plot that is fun to drift through, here goes. Gale Storm, born Josephine Cottle, is told she needs to pay rent by a crone, in the first interesting and oddly tense scene of the movie. She quickly finds herself in The Embassy nightclub with people willing to, after some cajoling, support her in her aims to be a famous singer.
At the same time, rich dad of The Embassy's Danny Warren wants his son to end his ambitions. The rich man sends the poor woman to give a legally binding "process server"* to Danny the love interest played by Phil Regan (seen above).
- A near definite sign of a bad movie is a black and white being turned to colour with a Mike Nelson commentary.
- Paradoxically, director Phil Karlson pushes the film to be better in little ways such as better than expected tracking shots for what Director Justin Decloux called "his film school".
- There is an austere beauty to some of the musical numbers, like Joe Louis.
- The director manages to make the story by Tim Ryan (Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla), Edmond Kelso (Lassie), and Nicholas Ray (Johnny Guitar).
- Be serious. Would you rather watch one hour and thirteen minutes of mere adequacy on The Best Of Ed Sullivan2 or a performance quality dart game of 1946's top genre's with Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five.3
3You can easily find this movie in somewhat higher quality transfers, but to truly see Louis Jordan, it benefits from Swing Parade's invisible editing.
No comments:
Post a Comment