Lullaby of Broadway *** (1951, Doris Day, Gene Nelson, Billy De Wolfe, S Z Sakall, Florence Bates, Gladys George) – Classic Movie Review 7683

Director David Butler’s 1951 Technicolor musical Lullaby of Broadway is one of the films that established Doris Day as the top US female star in 1952. It is a modest achievement – a formulaic, though entertaining Manhattan-set backstage musical with delightful vintage tunes to keep the nuts-and-bolts story amusing.

It is lifted by an irresistible combination of Ms Day as Melinda Howard, an unknown rising star, and Gladys George as her alcoholic, on-the-slide old trouper mom, Jessica Howard, whom she believes is still a top Broadway name not a has-been. Then, when the truth comes out, Day’s Melinda helps George’s Jessica off the slippery showbiz slope.

What is a bigger treat, the vintage George Gershwin and Cole Porter tunes or the impeccable support playing from Billy De Wolfe, S Z Sakall and Florence Bates?  In the end it is the numbers and playing that count – and they are showstoppers. George raises the roof when she sings ‘A Shanty in Old Shanty Town’ and ‘Please Don’t Talk about Me When I’m Gone’. Also Day sings those classics beautifully: ‘Lullaby of Broadway’, ‘You’re Getting to be a Habit with Me’, ‘Just One of Those Things’, ‘Somebody Loves Me’, and ‘I Love the Way You Say Goodnight’.

Gene Nelson co-stars as Tom Farnham. Also in the cast are Anne Triola, Hanley Stafford, Page Cavanaugh, Murray Alper, Jimmy Aubrey, Herschel Daugherty, Elizabeth Flournoy, Bess Flowers, Hans Herbert, Sheldon Jett, Donald Kerr, Edith Leslie, Philo McCullough, Arlyn Roberts and Charles Williams and the Page Cavanaugh Trio as Themselves, with Carlo De Mattiazzi and Constance De Mattiazzi as Dance Specialty.

The climax number is an homage to the ‘Lullaby of Broadway’ number in Gold Diggers of 1935 (1935).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7683

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com