wmschoell Okay, you take a fish-faced actress with a really awful voice and not that much acting ability, give her just one halfway decent song to sing, build a stupid plot around her that lacks not just a believable quality but any kind of charm or humor, and what have you got? Something that isn't even as entertaining as one of those mediocre Republic or Monogram musicals with Gale Storm or Phil Regan, both of whom sang better, and certainly looked better, than Jessie Matthews. There are about a zillion movie musicals better than this one. As for musicals by Rodgers and Hart, just about anything they did is a zillion times better than "Evergreen."

arfdawg-1 Harriet Green, a beloved and radiant music hall star of the Edwardian era, has a guilty secret: She has a baby daughter, born out of wedlock.Harriet leaves her public and flees to South Africa to raise her daughter quietly. The years pass, and now her daughter, Harriet Hawkes, returns to London as a young show-biz hopeful. Tommy, a wily publicity man, knowing that young Harriet is a dead ringer for her famous mother, convinces a theater producer to star her in a new revue as none other than the original Harriet Green, miraculously untouched by old age. The ruse works too well: Now the public believes Harriet is a well- preserved 60-year-old and Tommy is her son. The deception is more than merely inconvenient, because now Harriet and Tommy have secretly fallen in love.Leave it to the Brits to come up with a plot like this. It's entertaining.

bbmtwist I must add to the other raves on this page. This is an utterly charming and delightful film, derived from the London production of a Rodgers and Hart musical. Sadly, only three of their songs are retained, but one is the classic DANCING ON THE CEILING. Five songs by Henry M. Woods and others fill out the score.Matthews is a sheer delight, reminding me of Joan Collins, Julie Andrews, Jane Wyatt and Jennifer Jones, all rolled into one.The plot is cute and its twists and turns are fun. It moves swiftly with marvelous performances and the cinematography, art direction and editing are all top notch.I saw an impeccable print on Turner. Highly recommended to all musical film enthusiasts.The order of songs as they appear in the film:DADDY WOULDN'T BUY ME A BOW WOW (Tabrar) I WOULDN'T LEAVE MY LITTLE WOODEN HUT (Collins/Mellor) A LITTLE SPRINGTIME IN YOUR HEART (Woods) IF I GIVE IN TO YOU (Rodgers/Hart) TINKLE, TINKLE, TINKLE (Woods) DEAR DEAR (Rodgers/Hart) DANCING ON THE CEILING (Rodgers/Hart) OVER MY SHOULDERR (Woods)

Spondonman Evergreen is an old evergreen favourite of mine, now 70 years young and rising. Jessie Matthews sparkles but as usual Sonnie Hale tinkles.It's got a typically bizarre 30's British film plot, but it's handled in a defter way than was usual to help suspend your disbelief for the required 90 minutes. Illegitimate 20 yo daughter of deceased famous Music Hall singer comes from obscurity to impersonate her and gains fame as a result, the decent looking chap she's falling for (and vv) finds himself having to impersonate her non-existent son while her real father comes out of the woodwork after 20 years and starts to blackmail them. And for thousands of pounds a time in todays money - nice man!Of course this is all merely filler for the Rodgers & Hart songs, none greater than Dancing On The Ceiling, a sublime and surreal 4 minutes than grows more beautiful every time I see it. Jessie never used her beautiful cut glass voice to better effect. She was supposed to be a great dancer but I've not seen any evidence of it yet in her films, but this is probably as close as she ever will come to impressing me in that department. I'm always mindful of Dirk Bogarde's personal assessment of her dancing talents in the BBC documentary about her that he narrated in the early '90's that she was better than Ginger Rogers, and that she was a success in the US because of this. Again, Rogers had her own style - maybe Jessie was better in a chorus line; to me she danced like an ostrich on an escalator, her flying feet competition only to Charlotte Greenwood or Jackie Chan. Having said that, I could watch her films until the cows came home, they're all pleasant with good music, good dancing and good stories - sometimes!Watch this and marvel - that anyone as vital as she could die in obscurity in a nursing home and be buried unmarked in an obscure cemetery.