Movie review - Errol #34a - "It's a Great Feeling" (1949) **1/2

Bright, breezy musical with colour and energy and is perhaps best seen on a Saturday afternoon on television. It stars Jack Carson and Dennis Morgan, whom few remember today but who were used by Warners as their equivalent to Bob Hope and Bing Crosby (Carson played an girl-crazy egomaniac, Morgan the smooth crooner, both were pals but also rivals who double crossed each other); it also stars Doris Day who most know about - she's very bright, chirpy and girl-next-door-ish, no wonder she became a star so quickly (this was one of her earliest movies) - though the character she plays isn't very nice, a bit too mercenary-ish and whiny about wanting to be a star. She plays a character but Carson and Morgan play themselves - Carson's directing a movie and Day is the girl who is going to be in it.

This film has a lovely in-jokey quality - even those unfamiliar with Carson and Morgan (which I admit I was to a great degree) soon "get" their rapport, and there are heaps of cameos: Michael Curtiz, Raoul Walsh, King Vidor, and David Butler (NB I can understand Curtiz and Walsh and even Vidor - but did anyone really want to see a David Butler cameo? I guess you can do that when you direct the film), as well as stars such as Gary Cooper (very funny), Joan Crawford (funnier still, spoofing her image, spouting some typical Joan Crawford dialogue), Jane Wyman, Eleanor Parker, Ronald Reagan (always fun to see him - his and Wyman's daughter Maureen is also in it), Sydney Greenstreet, Edward G Robinson.

It has the feeling of a revue, with stars doing "turns" (something Warners helped pioneer with Stage Door Canteen - two years later that studio released one of the last of that genre, Starlift) - there is some poignance knowing that Warners would soon have to let most of them go. It does wear out its welcome after a while; Day's character isn't very likeable and the ending unsatisfying, with her returning home. This results in a strong gag - this is a spoiler but it's the reason I watched the film: at the very end Day marries Errol Flynn (shot through soft focus, looking handsome but a bit weary). The film makes the joke of Carson and Morgan going "life's going to be boring with this bloke" then they cut to Errol Flynn - but watching it you can't help think "hmmm... marriage to Errol would probably be a bit too interesting, you'd be better off being a movie star". (NB is the film endorsing marriage over career?)