edwagreen Damon Runyon like yarn with the wealthy coming to bat for the downtrodden at the very end.A just released Leo Gorcey, acting like Brooklyn all the way, comes upon Virginia Wiedler and her father. The latter has had his music stolen from him while he had been imprisoned. The gang has to find a way to turn the tables on the crooked theatrical producer.Playing his usual gangster self, Sheldon Leonard provides help for the group in order to get out of his own predicament.The highlight of the film is when the theater patrons are kidnapped so that they can see the group put on the show with the stolen music. As a society matron, Margaret Dumont provides hilarity. Just too bad that she, Leonard and Connie Gilchrist, as a social worker aren't used more.Very entertaining music with that patriotic ending just great.

dplomin This is such an interesting film, if as the previous comments attest to, some details that even I never knew, IE: The finale that was originally part of the WPA (ask kids today what THAT was!) and the Federal Theater Project's contribution to the Depression. What I found interesting/sad/macabre, was how many of the young actors in that film met an early demise. On the IMDb site itself:1)Virginia Weidler: Heart attack, age 412)Larry Nunn: Self inflicted gun shot wound, age 493)Ray McDonald: Death by choking on food in hotel room, age 344)Ben Carter, age 355)Leo Gorcey: Liver failure, age 536)Douglas McPhail: poison, after 1st failed suicide attempt,age 307)Rags Ragland: uremic poisoning, age 408)Darla Hood: died in North Hollywood following a relatively minoroperation of acute hepatitis under "mysteriouscircumstances", age 479)Richard Haydel, age 22 Was this film cursed? Or did actors die quicker then?

bkoganbing When Ballad for Americans became a big hit in 1939 out of the WPA Theater Project Musical Sing for Your Supper, MGM quickly bought the screen rights to the song. Both Paul Robeson and Bing Crosby made hit recordings of it that same year, though the song is pretty much identified with Robeson now. MGM waited three years before putting it into a film and it went into one of the products of their B picture unit, Born to Sing. This film is no doubt something that Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland rejected for one of their 'let's put on a show' films.It's just that kind of film. Crooked producer Lester Matthews and even crookeder press agent Charles Lane, plagiarize the work of Virginia Weidler's father, Henry O'Neill for their show. Topping that all off they frame Ray McDonald, Larry Nunn, and Leo Gorcey on an extortion rap.As they're being taken to jail, they're riding in the same paddy wagon as gangster Sheldon Leonard. They go along in an escape his gang has planned and he in turn gets ensnared in their machinations. Which as it turns out is to put on a show before Matthews does and showcase O'Neill's music.So help me that's the plot of this one. It's all quite innocently and charmingly done, but the presentation leaves one breathless.Tacked on to the end of the show is Ballad for Americans where the lead singer is Douglas MacPhail whose career came to tragically to an end the following year. Staging the number is Busby Berkeley and the staging of it is similar to some of what he did in Ziegfeld Girl the year before.Why MGM didn't put Ballad for Americans into one of their A films is something we'll never know.

aimless-46 "Born to Sing" (1942) could be summarized as "The Bowery Boys Put on One of Those Garland/Rooney Shows". Basically it is a "Bowery Boys" feature with a neighborhood talent show tacked onto the end. But this is not as bad as you might think. The boys are represented by Leo Gorcey; as a character named Snap Collins, pretty much his standard Slip Mahoney stuff. The budget is a bit larger so the technical production elements are better-the cinematography/lighting actually has a nice flare and the production design is quite good. But the best part is that the show is quite entertaining, at least until the super patriotic finale, out of place at best-drifting into pathetic several times, despite some slick staging and excellent use of lighting. This silly song features baritone Douglas McPhail who up to this point has looked totally embarrassed about appearing in the film. Overwrought as it is, the real problem is that it destroys the unity of the main production, which up to then had a lot of charm with the neighborhood children playing all the adult roles on the stage. Suddenly there is a group of actual adults inexplicably parading on stage like something out of "Triumph of the Will".This was Virginia Weidler's last real chance to go from child to adult star, she made a couple other films during the war but nothing that had this much potential. But the grown-up Weidler just didn't have much charisma. In fact, she gets completely upstaged by another teenage actress/singer Beverly Hudson who has a lot more energy and personality than Weidler. Hudson's big number is good enough to justify watching the entire film."Born to Sing's" premise revolves around Patsy Eastman (Weidler) and her father, a songwriter who wrote a show while in prison. Much like "House of Wax", a greedy promoter steals the material. Snap and his friends try to pressure the promoter but are charged with extortion. Fortunately they meet a gangster named Pete Detroit (Sheldon Leonard) who is sympathetic and helps them open their show before the promoter can premiere his; with Pete going so far as to use his fleet of taxicabs to ferry unsuspecting drama critics from the promoter's show to the kid's show. Watch for appearances by Darla Hood (Little Rascals) and Margaret Dumont (Marx Brothers). One notable scene for inclusion in "Blacks in Hollywood" has token black Eightball (Ben Carter) escorting Weidler (in black-face) to the jail to visit her father. They fool the guard by engaging in the extreme stereotypical behavior early audiences seemed to enjoy. Which makes the finale's attempt of rally all Americans (all races, faiths, and occupations) behind the war effort even more hollow.Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.