Twenty Million Sweethearts *** (1934, Dick Powell, Ginger Rogers, Pat O’Brien, Allen Jenkins) – Classic Movie Review 7696

Director Ray Enright’s 1934 Warner Bros movie Twenty Million Sweethearts stars Dick Powell, Ginger Rogers and Pat O’Brien.

O’Brien plays unscrupulous agent Russell ‘Russ’ Blake, who discovers singing waiter Buddy Clayton (Powell) and puts him on radio, making him a big star, in this pleasing little satirical musical. It is notable as Rogers’s first star role – making a strong impression as Powell’s wife Peggy Cornell, whose marriage is endangered by his stardom. And there is solid entertainment from the Mills Brothers and Allen Jenkins as Uncle Pete.

But it is the amiable Powell’s show, and he has several very pleasing Al Dubin and Harry Warren (music and lyrics) songs to croon: ‘Fair and Warmer’, ‘What Are Your Intentions’, and ‘I’ll String Along with You’.

Also in the cast are band leader Ted Fio Rito and His Orchestra, The Radio Rogues, Grant Mitchell, Joseph Cawthorn, Joan Wheeler, Henry O’Neill, Johnny Arthur, Oscar Apfel, Wild Bill Elliott, George Chandler, Grace Hayle, Charles Lane, Milton Kibbee, Sam McDaniel, Dennis O’Keefe, Charles Sullivan and Eddie Kane.

Twenty Million Sweethearts is remade as Doris Day’s My Dream Is Yours (1949).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7696

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