No, No, Nanette **½ (1940, Anna Neagle, Richard Carlson, Victor Mature, Roland Young, Helen Broderick, Eve Arden, ZaSu Pitts) – Classic Movie Review 11,635

Director Herbert Wilcox’s 1940 musical film No, No, Nanette is based on the 1919 stage play, and stars Anna Neagle, Richard Carlson, Victor Mature, Helen Broderick, Roland Young, Eve Arden and ZaSu Pitts.

Anna Neagle went to Hollywood with her producer husband Herbert Wilcox for a series of updated American musicals. The middle of them is this 1940 weakened film version of the Broadway hit No, No, Nanette.

Annoyingly they have shoved the lovely Otto Harbach / Emil Nyitray / Vincent Youmans / Frank Mandel score into the background and foregrounded the daft reworked plot about a girl called Nanette (Neagle) who helps her uncle, Mr ‘Happy’ Jimmy Smith (Young), with girl trouble, with the aid of painter Tom Gillespie (Carlson) and producer William Trainor (Mature). Soon, Nanette (Neagle) finds herself falling for Tom (Carlson).

Surprisingly, Neagle is only OK in material that should be ideal for her and there is a lack of real vitality in the direction – and it is a pity that it is in black and white.

A US flop.

The smashing songs include ‘I Want To Be Happy’, ‘Tea for Two’, ‘For One You Love’ and ‘No, No, Nanette’.

It was first filmed in 1930 as No, No, Nanette, with Bernice Claire, Lucien Littlefield and Lilyan Tashman. Pitts plays the servant Pauline in both versions.

The cast are Anna Neagle as Nanette, Richard Carlson as Tom Gillespie, Victor Mature as William Trainor, Roland Young as Mr ‘Happy’ Jimmy Smith, Helen Broderick as Mrs. Susan Smith, ZaSu Pitts as Pauline Hastings, Eve Arden as Kitty, Billy Gilbert as Styles, Tamara as Sonya, Stuart Robertson as Stillwater Jr. / Stillwater Sr, Dorothea Kent as Betty, Aubrey Mather as the butler Remington, Mary Gordon as the cook Gertrude, Russell Hicks as “Hutch” Hutchinson, Margaret Armstrong, Victor Wong, Minerva Urecal, Rosella Towne, Julius Tannen, Benny Rubin, Ronald R Rondell, Cyril Ring, Joey Ray, Frank Puglia, Sally Payne, George Noisom, Torben Meyer, Keye Luke, Ethelreda Leopold, Paul Irving, Marion Graham, Chris Franke, Bud Geary, Jean Fenwick, Lester Dorr, John Dilson, Mary Currier, Dora Clement, Maurice Cass, Joan Blair, and Muriel Barr.

Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,635

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