mark.waltz An old vaudeville gag has a wife hiding her lover in her closet as her husband comes home unexpectedly, and when he goes to the closet, the lover claims he's waiting for a streetcar as one arrives in the nick of time. This is nothing more than an almost plotless musical comedy about an American theatrical producer (Jack Benny) in London who accepts the invitation of a neglected wife (Binnie Barnes) to come to her country estate for the weekend to make her husband (Edward Arnold) jealous. He's already upset because the musical comedy star he's in love with (Dorothy Lamour) loves somebody else (Phil Harris). Then there's "Rochester", aka Eddie Anderson, Benny's wise-cracking but loyal valet who gives Mr. Benny as good as it takes. Toss in Betty Grable in a pointless role as a chorus girl and you've got the ingredients for a comical pie where sadly the fruit has been left out.Some lavish production numbers are interspersed, but other than the luxurious art decco look, they are not really all that memorable. The best scenes of course involve Benny and Rochester's interactions, especially a huge meal where the dateless Benny refuses to allow Rochester to partake of it until he is dumped by Lamour and turned down by Grable and her chorus girl friends who would rather spend an evening with their Aunt Tilly than with Jack. The rapporteur between Benny and Robinson might often seem subservient from Rochester's point of view, but it becomes very clear that Benny would be absolutely lost without him and that Rochester is greatly aware of that. Isabel Jeans ("Gigi") and Monty Woolley ("The Man Who Came to Dinner") have inconsequential supporting parts as members of Barnes' and Arnold's social set, with Jeans very comical in her over the top French accent as the instigator of Barnes' deception. Barnes is urbane and sophisticated, and Arnold his usually gregarious self, very funny in a scene where Barnes brags about her lunch with Benny as he basically responds, "That's nice, dear". Of course, when all becomes clear to him, it's a different story, and Arnold spends much of the rest of the film trying to shoot Benny for messing with his wife. Unlike other comics of the time, it appears to me that Benny simply tried to repeat the success of what he was doing on radio, not really thinking that audiences at the movies wanted something more solid than gags and a couple of decent songs. It isn't bad, but I wouldn't call Benny a threat at Paramount to anything his good friend Bob Hope had been doing already.

JohnHowardReid Copyright 7 July 1939 by Paramount Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Paramount: 28 June 1939. U.S. release: 7 July 1939. Australian release: 30 September 1939. Sydney opening at the Prince Edward (as the top half of a double bill with Robert Florey's "B", The Magnificent Fraud) where the movie failed so miserably it was replaced in the middle of its third week by Death of a Champion. 9 reels. 85 minutes.SYNOPSIS: An American producer is in love with the leading lady of the show he is staging in London. Unfortunately, his love is not reciprocated. He decides to make her jealous by romancing other women.COMMENT: Lavishly produced, beautifully mounted musical displaying the superlative ability of comedians Jack Benny (who is in every scene of the movie but one) and Rochester to overcome the restraints of an indifferent, old-hat plot cooked up by Morrie Ryskind (a gag-writer for the Marx Brothers). Benny and Anderson manage to keep the fur flying magnificently right through a series of long, long openings until the first musical number finally comes along. It's the most tuneful in the movie, "That Sentimental Sandwich", and nicely rendered by Lamour with a bit of skilful assistance from Harris and Rochester. Those deservedly popular crowd-pleasers Monty Woolley, Edward Arnold and Binnie Barnes (and E.E. Clive) then come on to bolster the comic endeavors of our heroes until the next stand-out interlude, "Fidgety Joe", somewhat tepidly sung by Betty Grable (also with a bit of strong assistance from the omnipresent Phil Harris) and most vibrantly danced by the delightfully gifted Rochester.The Merriel Abbott Dancers are wisely saved for a spectacular musical climax where they disport themselves in colorful costumes through the melodic "Strange Enchantment" (sung by Lamour), whilst Rochester shuffles up a storm in another standing-ovation solo spot. The pin-wheeling Merriel Abbotts then return for "Bluebirds in the Moonlight", whilst Benny encores with the Pina acrobats in a tangled routine of mishaps which Danny Kaye later reprised in Knock on Wood.Although just about everyone hated it, I found this entry a delightful show, featuring great stars and some great support players including Cecil Kellaway and Charles Coleman, directed with panache by Mark Sandrich and lustrously photographed by that master of black-and-white texture, Ted Tetzlaff. In my opinion, the Paramount gloss was never finer. And the Edith Head costumes are wonderfully slinky. Lamour never looked more glamorous.

irishfou without getting into all the downer reviews, I watched this movie and delighted in the characters...Jack Benney was funny, Phil Harris was great, Dottie Lamour was THE girl of 1939, she is alluring, exotic, classy, and sings like an angel. Betty Grable is gorgeous and Edward Arnold and Monty Wooley do superb supporting comedy characters. The show becomes very memorable when they show the stage acts. The singing is terrific and Eddie Anderson (Rochester) is the true highlight. He is on of the greatest hoofers I have ever seen, he is graceful and modern. The chorus lines were full of great routines and beauty. I bought the movie and I'd buy it again. I could easily give it a 10 but it didn't have enough Lamour.

theowinthrop There is a persistent rumor that Jack Benny only made one good film in his career: Ernst Lubitsch's TO BE OR NOT TO BE. Actually, the radio and television comedy star did make other comedies that were worth watching - most notably CHARLIE'S AUNT , IT'S IN THE BAG and LOVE THY NEIGHBOR (both with Benny's radio feud partner Fred Allan), and GEORGE WASHINGTON SLEPT HERE (with Anne Sheridan and Charles Coburn - a kind of dry run for Cary Grant and Myrna Loy's MR. BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAMHOUSE). But he certainly made one or two serious misfires: BUCK BENNY RIDES AGAIN and THE HORN BLOWS AT MIDNIGHT (the last one even Benny realized was awful).MAN ABOUT TOWN was typical of the rut that Benny frequently fell into. Because of his radio personality, the movies rarely thought of experimenting with him in a variety of roles. Different aspects of his cheap tightwad and his narcissistic would-be great lover popped up in many of his films, even his best ones. In MAN ABOUT TOWN he is a musical comedy star and producer in London, playing opposite Dorothy Lamour (whom he is in love with). But she is tired of his finding excuses not to marry her, so she is cold shouldering him. Benny tries to get her back in line by showing too much attention to Binnie Barnes, an English aristocrat. Barnes, upon the advise of Isobel Elsom, reciprocates to make her husband, Edward Arnold, jealous. As is pointed out in another of the reviews, Elsom is determined to reignite her husband's (Monte Wooley) jealousy the same way. Benny is not upset by this development - besides making Lamour smolder (as he hopes) he is getting a lot of publicity for his new show (which has a final musical number where Benny is a potentate with a harem).Arnold and Wooley both are certain that each other is the cuckold here, but when they both realize that both of their wives have been seemingly carrying on with Benny, they both decide to rid the world of him. So while on stage in that final number, Benny sees both men standing side by side with murder in their eyes, and makes a fair shambles of his show's finale. Lamour and Benny's faithful valet/factotum Eddie Anderson save his bacon.It is amusing at points, and besides "Rochester" it is of interest to Benny and old radio fans to see his first "juvenile" singer, Phil Harris, in the film too. But it is little more than a mild amusement. See it once, and that is all there is to it. Amusing but not a film for the ages.