Variety Girl

1947 "PARAMOUNT'S MAMMOTH MUSICAL ROMANCE ..."
6.3| 1h33m| NR| en
Details

Dozens of star and character-actor cameos and a message about the Variety Club (a show-business charity) are woven into a framework about two hopeful young ladies who come to Hollywood, exchange identities, and cause comic confusion (with slapstick interludes) throughout the Paramount studio.

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Reviews

Pluskylang Great Film overall
Bluebell Alcock Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies
Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.
Mehdi Hoffman There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.
JohnHowardReid The flimsy story is an excuse for a wonderful parade of some of our favorite stars - some of them doing unusual or uncharacteristic things, and doing them rather well. Alan Ladd for instance joins Dorothy Lamour in singing "Tallahassee", whilst the ultra-lively Pearl Bailey has "Tired", and Gary Cooper saddles up a wooden horse on a carousel! True, there is a bit overmuch propaganda for the Variety Club for my taste and it's surprising other show-business personalities didn't object to the Club's annual banquet being turned into an all-Paramount affair. On the other hand, there's so much fun and good humor in the picture, plus of course, an inside view of Paramount Studios (very much confettied and hokied-up of course, but still more entertaining than a realistic tour of Monogram, say), that Variety Girl is hard to resist.
julisa This movie is a rollicking treat in so many ways.Firstly it is a wonderful nostalgic trip around Paramount studios in 1947. Bing's makeshift golf course, sound stages and administration buildings.It is also an insight into how pictures were made. In the Cecil B. DeMille scene set there is of course no blue/green screen. The projection light goes on, and suddenly you see the back projection of the river. And when the actress walks behind the screen you see her shadow looming prominently. Or in William Bendix's kitchen where you see the sink is simply a board with nothing underneath, and the actor runs out of a back door discretely hidden in the scenery.Even the backstory used as a link to the stars is entertaining. Frank Ferguson with his distinct gravelly voice, who generally plays small parts such as the townsman in westerns who gets shot after about 5 minutes, gives his all as the studio head, Olga San Juan's performance isn't too forced and De Forrest Kelley is a curiosity in a rare leading (sort of) nice guy role. But of course the crowd wants to see the stars. And boy do they shine. Hope & Crosby's golf skit, Alan Ladd in a singing role with Dorothy Lamour, even Pinto Colvig (best known as the voice of Grumpy & the first voice of Goofy) in performance doing voice over.Sadly the print I saw (Universal Vault DVD series)has the Puppetoon sequence in black and white (even though the credits say it's in color).Apart from that frustrating issue, in summing up, just relax and soak up the fun.
writers_reign This was arguably the last of the 'all-star' spectaculars generated by the second world war and alas it ranks a bad nowhere to such admittedly ho hum entries as Hollywood Canteen and Thank Your Lucky Stars. On the plus side buffs will welcome the chance to see Frank Ferguson in a rare leading role and whilst it's true than many of the Paramount 'names' are wasted there is the odd moment - Ray Milland answers the phone in his dressing room by removing it from the porcelain bowl below the ceiling light and Alad Ladd reveals a pleasant singing voice in Frank Loesser's Tallahassee - it would, of course, have been a 'natural' to have seen Ladd teamed with frequent co-star Veronica Lake in something but the studio had let her go the year before. Worth a look but that's about all.
Cajun-4 There's plenty of stars in this homage to Variety clubs international but precious little entertainment. A poor script and shoddy production values make this movie look as though it was shot over weekends on whatever sets happened to be available. Painful to sit through at times with dated comedy routines that were probably not very funny even at the time. Of the performers Pearl Bailey does a not bad musical number, and Bing Crosby and Bob Hope come the closest to being funny.