Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!

Peereddi I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Stephanie There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Alex da Silva Jack Oakie (Calhoun) and John Payne (Harrigan) are a couple of songwriters on Tin Pan Alley. They need a hit to pay their rent and Oakie puts in a call to a friend Alice Faye (Katie) to come and help them out performing songs. She brings along her sister Betty Grable (Lilly). They achieve success but things don't go as planned especially with the romance between Payne and Faye. Can they all get together again by the end of the film? Have a guess… The cast are fine with Betty Grable coming across as the most likable. Alice Faye is a bit precious, John Payne is a bit negative while Oakie has loads of energy. He is, however, a good balance for Payne who can be a bit moody. As for the songs, I liked them all, especially the first one that Faye and Grable sing and dance to. There is a running joke throughout the film as Oakie keeps changing the words to the song but I reckon it needs no improvement from this opening number. "Moonlight Bay" is another standout as is the whole "Sheik of Araby" sequence with the Nicolas Brothers doing their thing! I disagree with other reviewers in that I found "America I Love You" to be the worst offering.As regards the story, the Nora Bayes reference was lost on me and, unfortunately, will be lost on many others. However, it was made clear that she is big news, and if she comes knocking at your door to sing one of your songs, then you don't turn her down. And this is where the film gets a little silly. Payne gives her the song to sing and Faye seems hostile to the idea. Faye should be supportive of this move – what a coup! The next bit also doesn't make sense, as success for Payne doesn't seem to take off for him once Faye leaves to join her sister. The whole point of giving Nora Bayes the song was to gain instant success on the back of it.The story is slight but it is the musical segments that bring the score for this film into a higher bracket. They are the only memorable parts of the film and the only parts worth re-visiting.

weezeralfalfa Alice Faye and Betty Grable were made for each other as a sister act, together or separately. As the dominant sister, Alice got most of the single numbers, but Betty got to show her stuff in the "Honeysuckle Rose"- "Moonlight and Roses" routine. I can't believe they were never paired again(Well, they were supposed to be in "The Dolly Sisters", but it was too late, as Alice decided to retire just then). John Payne and Jack Oakie were another great buddy pair, Oakie providing a perfect comic balance to Payne's serious demeanor, as a pair of struggling tune smiths. Oakie does an impromptu rendition of a classic George M. Cohan war moral booster, composed about the time this story takes place, at the beginning of WWI. This duo would appear together or separately in several more Faye films. Payne would also serve as a usually successful rival for Betty's heart in several other films. Too bad Oakie was never considered romantic material for the leading ladies. He was certainly charming enough. He could have teamed up with Betty while Payne was romancing or sulking with Alice.The Nicholas Brothers were yet another talented pair, though they only appeared in their dance routine in "The Sheik of Araby" extravaganza. Breaking the color barrier, they appeared in a number of top musicals of this era, including "Sun Valley Serenade" and the all African American cast in "Stormy Weather", where they performed perhaps their most famous routine. Rotund veteran comedian Billy Gilbert seemed bored with his harem and other diversions, until Alice and Betty showed up in his harem, when he joined them in a memorable song and dance rendition of the title song for "The Sheik of Araby" scene. All in all, a great vaudevillian mix of song and dance, comedy and romantic drama. My main regret is that this wasn't filmed in Technicolor. Few films were then, and the studios didn't always pick the right ones for this luxury treatment. It's about time a DVD version of this classic musical comedy was made available, and dare I hope for a colorized version?This film was essentially remade in 1949as "Oh, You Beautiful Doll", in Technicolor. June Haver and Gail Robbins took the places of Alice and Betty. Mark Stevens and S.Z. Sakal took the places of Payne and Oakie, respectively. I like the original better, except it was filmed in B&W.

bkoganbing Tin Pan Alley was the first try at a successful experiment Darryl Zanuck was trying. An actor who was as good looking as Tyrone Power and could contribute musically to the film. He found one in John Payne this was the first of four films that Payne and Faye did together. They were scheduled to do a fifth with The Dolly Sisters, but Alice retired after being offered that script.Payne slipped very well into Ty Power's hero/heel character that he patented at 20th Century Fox. Payne's character Skeets Harrigan and his partner Jack Oakie are trying to hit it big in the music publishing industry pre World War I. He meets Alice Faye and her sister Betty Grable doing a vaudeville act and he falls for Faye bigtime. He loves her, but he wants success more. How they resolve their ambitions is crux of the movie.Alice Faye and Betty Grable in their only film together play the Blane sisters. Alice is in good voice as always and she gets the best songs in the film. Payne partners her in the film's best number America I Love You and he also reprises with her in the only original song for the film, You Say The Sweetest Things, Baby.You Say The Sweetest Things Baby was written by composer Harry Warren and lyricist Mack Gordon. Gordon had written with Harry Revel a whole group of songs that Faye introduced. But Revel left Fox and Darryl Zanuck teamed Gordon with Warren who had just left Warner Brothers. It was a felicitous teaming and Gordon and Warren wrote a whole group of some of the best loved tunes of the 40s, Chatanooga Choo Choo being the most famous and also You'll Never Know, probably Faye's best loved song.In watching films like Tin Pan Alley something is lost unless you're an amateur historian like me. Esther Ralston does a cameo as Nora Bayes who was one of the best loved vaudeville stars pre-World War I. In 1940 people still knew who Nora Bayes was. Now I'm sure she draws a great big "who" from most people if they're asked who she is. A key scene in the movie is after Faye has delivered a smash version of America I Love You, Payne gives in to Nora Bayes request for the song because of his ambition. That's totally lost on younger viewers.Actually Nora Bayes did introduce a very famous World War I era song, written by a guy who normally introduced his own material. She gave the first public performance of Over There written by George M. Cohan and documented nicely in Yankee Doodle Dandy.You never ever go wrong watching an Alice Faye film.

willrams Alice Faye was my favorite singer actress and made so many good films when I was in High School. Tin Pan Alley was especially entertaining and had our favorite Ethel Merman. As always she was the great belter; remember her in Alexander's Ragtime Band with Tyrone Power and Don Ameche. Both Power and Ameche played in several of Alice's films; and then there were Jack Oakie and June Havoc; what an amusing pair they were! The films I liked best were Tin Pan Alley 1940; The Gang's All Here and Hello Frisco Hello both 1943; and State Fair remake with Pat Boone and Bobby Darin (1960s?) In 1985 Alice Faye was at the Arlington Theater promoting health care products, and I had the privilege of talking to her. She was a great lady and very nice!