Monday, June 20, 2011

Radio review – TGA – “Boy Meets Girl” (1946) ****

Gene Kelly has a go at screwball comedy, and is very good – but then when you think about it, a lot of his musicals were essentially screwball comedies with musical numbers. He and Frank Lovejoy play as a duo of screenwriters who wind up making a star out of the baby from single mother who works at the studio. 
It’s bright and cheerful; I went into this a bit hostile because I heard it was a spoof of Hollywood, and wasn’t in the mood to listen to some diatribe about the superiority of theatre, especially not after having ploughed through some lame Theatre Guild shows (I think the majority of old movies were better written than old plays). But it’s not – the satire of Hollywood is affectionate (and to be fair they are always reheating old formulas over there), pot shots are taken at Broadway too, but mostly the foibles of actors, writers, producers and dumb blondes.

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