Girl Crazy 1932 Screenplay by Walter DeLeon, Herman J Mankiewicz, Eddie Welsh and Tim Whelan, directed by William A Seiter. It's based on the 1930 play of the same name by Guy Bolton and John McGowan. Guy Bolton had worked with PG Wodehouse on a number of plays in the 1920s. I read the movie wasn't much like the play.
Three songs from the play, written by George and Ira Gershwin, were used in the movie. Two are familiar to me, Bidin' My Time and I Got Rhythm. The latter was introduced in the play by Ethel Merman. Ginger Rogers was the star of the play. There was a 1943 adaptation of the play with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland.
Bert Wheeler is a cab driver, he's driving Robert Woolsey across the California desert to a remote gambling place in a tiny town. Stanley Fields is the local thug, he's been killing the sheriffs as they've been hired. He runs the gambling and he wants to put the saloon Robert has come to work at out of business. Poor Bert gets signed up to be the new sheriff. Robert tries to keep him from getting killed, after helping get him elected. He wants to keep Stanley from getting control of the saloon.
Besides too much singing, there's some knockabout shenanigans, some romance, and the usual sort of things one would expect in a Wheeler and Woolsey film. They don't change their style much in their run. The RKO records say it lost $150,000, the film cost $532,000 and the box office was $555,000. I don't know what the theaters got out of the box office in those days but I could guess. I enjoyed the running about and speeded up some of the songs.
Comments