Something to Sing About (1937 film)
| Something to Sing About | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Victor Schertzinger |
| Written by | Victor Schertzinger Austin Parker |
| Produced by | Grand National Pictures |
| Starring | James Cagney Evelyn Daw Gene Lockhart |
| Distributed by | Grand National Pictures |
Release dates | September 30, 1937 |
Running time | 93 min / USA:89 min (2005 DVD release) |
| Language | English |
Something to Sing About is the second and final film James Cagney made with Grand National Pictures (the first being Great Guy) before mending relations with and returning to Warner Brothers. It is one of the few films to showcase Cagney's singing and dancing talents. The film flopped in theaters, and was the end of Grand National Pictures, who went significantly overbudget in its production.
This film is now in the public domain.
Plot
Spoiler warning: Plot details and/or ending follow.
The story is a satire on the film industry's less desirable behavior. James Cagney plays Terry Rooney (his character's stage name, replacing Thaddeus McGillicuddy), a band leader in New York who gets a Hollywood offer. He leaves his fiancee and the band's soprano Rita Wyatt, played by Evelyn Daw, for Hollywood, where he soon finds himself at the hands of Gene Lockhart's B.O. Regan, a studio executive who sets a team of professionals to clean up and train Rooney into an actor. Regan, after struggling with another new talent who has quickly developed an uncontrollable ego, also secretly insists against anyone praising Rooney's work. While filming a shot of a bar fight, what is inteded to be a fake punch at Rooney hits him; a full fight with other actors breaks out, and Rooney leaves Hollywood to marry Wyatt, taking her on a cruise that ends in San Francisco.
While they are away, the film is completed and premiered; it is a huge hit. Everyone is searching for Rooney. When he is found in San Francisco, Regan flies out immediately with a contract. A clause of this contract requires Rooney remain single for its duration; Rooney and Wyatt agree to keep their relationship quiet, with Wyatt posing as Rooney's secretary.
Another film is begun, with Rooney acting alongside Mona Barrie's Stephanie Hajos. Studio publicist Hank Meyers, played by William Frawley, plants news that Rooney and Hajos are love interests. The combined stress of remaining a secret while Rooney has less and less time for her eventually drives Wyatt back to New York. Hajos finds out that Rooney is not only not interested in her but is married; the story breaks to the papers, and rooney returns to Wyatt with a front-page article clarifying his relationship with Hojas as a hoax.
Ahead of its Time
Philip Ahn, a Korean-American actor who had nearly been rejected by director Lewis Milestone from Anything Goes the prior year because his English was too good, plays Ito, a Japanese man who wants to be an actor and has been relegated to being a man-servant, assigned here to Rooney. Ito has been forced by previous masters to speak with an accent and a minimum of English words; he reveals to Rooney that this is a pretense. Ito keeps the pretense up around others for most of the film, until he gets tired of being ordered around by Meyers and announces in impeccable English (amidst a cast full of accents and casual pronunciations) that he came to Hollywood to be an actor and not a servant, and that he was quitting.
Spoilers end here.
Musical Numbers
The film had five songs and three dances. Cagney's dancing and singing open and close the film, and the opening number also incorporates singing from Rooney and Wyatt's bandmates as well as from Daw herself. Cagney also reunites with vaudevillians Johnny Boyle and Harland Dixon for a dance on the ship Rooney and Wyatt honeymoon on.