1942 - ORCHESTRA WIVES, entertaining musical drama

Naive groupie Ann Rutherford falls for the rather dense trumpet player George Montgomery a member of the Glenn Miller Band which in this film is for some reason is called the Gene Morrison Band.  Instead of just sleeping with the guy and getting him out of her system she ends up marrying him instead.  This brings her into conflict with the other wives of the band who turn out to be a bunch of back stabbing women.  And so it goes with the plot of this film.

Ann Rutherford played Scarlett O'Hara's sister in Gone With The Wind and was in the popular Andy Hardy series as Mickey Rooney's girlfriend.  George Montgomery the trumpet player was never a big star but had a long career in B-movies.  The rest of the cast is interesting, glamour girl Carole Landis, Cesar Romero probably best remembered as The Joker in the Batman TV series, Jackie Gleason and especially the very talented Nicholas Brothers who dance up a storm in the final number.

Frankly, if it wasn't for the interesting cast and the great Glenn Miller music this film would probably be something of an ordeal to sit through.  The private lives of a touring big band musicians aren't that interesting or I should say as presented in this story not interesting at all.

 

Still the music is great.

Written by Karl Tunberg and Darrell Ware, the running time 98 minutes.

1941 - CONFIRM OR DENY, a good 40's war drama

40's star Don Ameche is the editor of a news wire service sort of based on the Associated Press or United Press International.  Joan Bennett is the teletype operator in the office.  Ameche is the brash American looking for a scoop at any price, Bennett is the more reserved British citizen trying to keep Ameche from revealing to much about England's war efforts for the sake of a good story.

This 20th Century Fox film made during World War II was a surprise to me.  It's very entertaining and moves along at a fast pace.  Don Ameche was always sort of a lightweight leading man for Fox but here he's pretty good playing a variation on the Walter Burns character from The Front Page.

It's almost refreshing to see a film that doesn't have a torrid office romance going on between Ameche and Bennett.  The film stays focused on the story and the background of the London Blitz.  Frankly all this lovey dovey stuff always seems out of place in these war movies when people are supposedly fighting for their lives.

Confirm or Deny was actually started by Fritz Lang who directed it for a couple of weeks before he either got sick or quit the film.  Archie Mayo a decent studio director finished the film.  A very entertaining film.

74 minutes, written by Joseph Swerling.