GusF This is an extremely fun musical romantic comedy-drama which features the songs of Irving Berlin and stars Don Ameche (one of my absolute favourite actors), Tyrone Power and Alice Faye, three of Fox's biggest stars of the day. The screenplay was co-written by Berlin himself and features some of his best songs such as "Heat Wave", "Easter Parade" and "Blue Skies" (my personal favourite of those featured). It has a great supporting cast including future Tin Man Jack Haley, Ethel Merman, Jean Hersholt and Ruth Terry (who is still alive) as well as brief appearances by future horror icons Lon Chaney, Jr. as a photographer and John Carradine as the most unintentionally creepy taxi driver in film history.The film tells the story of a privileged young man named Roger Grant (played by Power), who takes the stage name Alexander and eventually becomes a bigwig on the swing scene, and his relationship with the initially unsophisticated "platinum loudmouth" Stella Kirby (played by Faye). After months of fighting, they realise that they love each other and become a couple but break up when Stella chooses to go to Broadway without Alexander and his band. After going to and returning from World War I, Alexander realises that he has been unfair to her and wants to get back together, only to find that she is married to his best friend Charlie Dwyer (played by Ameche, who gives the best performance in the film). However, everything turns out perfectly fine in the end and there is a happy ending of a kind that only Classic Hollywood could deliver! The second half of the film is far stronger than the first but it's a great feel good film. They don't make them like this anymore, I'm afraid. It's the kind of film that my grandmother loved.

ralphwatzke For a long time, it has been said, in our family (the Watzkes), especially in New Orleans, and in the New Orleans jazz/ragtime community, that this movie, and the 1911 Irving Berlin song that inspired it, were based on a real person, the New Orleans band-leader Alexander Constantin Watzke Jr. (also known as "Alex" or "King" Watzke), whose band, popular c. 1904-11 or later, actually was known as Alexander's Ragtime Band! He was in fact, the only known ragtime/jazz band leader of the time named Alexander! The movie itself was an awesome period piece, and the music was excellent! The previous reviewers have described it in so much detail, there's little we can add of relevance. The story line does closely parallel the real Alexander Watzke's story, in that too, he was the son of a wealthy merchant & politician (Alexander Sr.), and that Junior's decision to play ragtime (an African- American genre at the time), deeply scandalized his conservative New Orleans family,and he was considered a "black sheep" It is unclear why his name and the city were changed in the movie, but it is believed that may have been as a result of pressure from the family; Alexander Jr.'s final years and death are shrouded in controversy. Anyway, I heartily recommend this fine movie about my famous relation!

bruno-32 How sad ....wonderful songs that make you whistle or sing them time after time..as compared to today's garbage. All the accolades mentioned in other reviews were right on, the music, the stars at their pinnacle success. Aside from that, no one mentioned the one skit that really impressed me was the one that Wally Vernon and Dixie Dumbar did...wonderfully performed...It was one of the highlights for me. I could buy the DVD just for that one skit.The scene where Tyrone is insulting Alice with her Plantinium hair wig, must have been a ' dig' at the rage Jean Harlow caused when M-G-M created it for her and the 'penciled' eyebrows.

MartinHafer This film starred the top talent at Twentieth-Century Fox. Tyrone Power (who could not sing or play music), Alice Faye and Don Ameche star in this film directed by Henry King and featuring the music of Irving Berlin. Clearly it was a prestige film for the studio--a large budget film with high expectations for success.The film begins with Power playing sophisticated music for a crowd of high-class folks. Only moments later, however, he's playing Ragtime music for a crowd in a bar--and it's obvious that he's torn between the world of society and popular music. Quite by Hollywood accident, the feisty Alice Faye is pulled into Power's band and the way she and Power meet and get along is very clichéd--you know, the misunderstanding that results in them becoming enemies and you KNOW they'll be in love sooner or later! She is a low-class dame and over time, Power is able to polish her image and make her a success--along with his band. On hand is another cliché--the nice-guy friend (Ameche) who loves the girl but demurs when his friend and the dame become a pair. You almost feel sorry for Ameche getting such a thankless role as the 'nice' friend...though I am sure his enormous checks from the studio more than made up for this! And then there's the final big cliché when Faye and Power break up--only, naturally, to be reunited by the film's conclusion. The only question is what, exactly, will happen in between--and there are certainly a lot of twists that occur in the interim in their parallel journeys. WWI, another woman (a younger and amazingly pretty Ethel Merman), marriage and bootlegging all are among the things the film explores during this portion. And if all this seems familiar, it is if you've seen many Fox musicals. This plot, with a few changes, was used in "King of Burlesque" and many other films with Alice Faye.As for the film overall, it's pretty much what you expect from the studio--a lot of music (way too much, actually), a lot of polish and the best sets money can buy (Twentieth-Century Fox and MGM were the kings of such lavish productions). But, beneath all the polish, it is all formula and clichés--the sort of film that is pleasant but certainly not a must-see. Plus, oddly, the music, for the most part, isn't exactly Ragtime--often it's more the typical sort of musical numbers you'd see in just about any Fox production of the day.By the way, in the WWI portion, I noticed that some of the soldiers were amazingly old and fat. Were we THAT desperate for men?! And get a load of those devil-girl dancers at about the 75 minute mark!