wmss This film is significant for one reason only: Lucille Ball met Desi Arnaz,they married,they created the most influential sitcom in TV history. They created the most influential television production company of the 20th century.The film? Awful. Ann Miller? Awful.Lucy is pretty good in a trite role,Desi is the only one really worth watching. The plot? Oh,there was one? Okay,seriously, I didn't find anything about this enjoyable, and I usually like big splashy 40s musicals,but this was frantic and pretty convoluted to say the least. Not my cup of tea.

Hollycon1 This film was made in 1940. We were just about to go to War with Japan & people had just barely survived the Great Depression. Most people wanted fun escapist movies. The music is great! Of course it's full of fluff. The audience preferred it that way! Ask your grandparents, they'll tell you what life was like in 1940. My grandmother had a job seating people at the Admiral theater in Seattle, Wa. Actually West Seattle, which at the time was considered a separate area from Seattle. She told us that the customers loved Musicals and Westerns. The perfect escape for a Saturday afternoon. The theater's were full for every show and only cost a dime. I think if we were to quit picking apart these films and just enjoy them for the the times they were created, we could learn a lot about life in the 40's. Try to see what we have in common with that era instead of looking for the differences. We are much too cynical and if we can't enjoy a silly film like Too many Girls, we haven't come as far as we think we have. Submitted by Little Blue

fluteboo A cast of thousands--extra dancers and singers. George Abbott probably had 18 dancers in the Broadway version, so here he got about 180. Some of these numbers are well worth the watch. Don't miss the surreal finale with Desi Arnaz on conga (and he's supposed to be a rich Argentinean). Lucille Ball is shot through gauze even though she's quite young, but who cares, she's luminescent in this silly plot. This is the rare Hollywood film taking place on a college campus where not a single professor is evident, save a quick visual joke.The hard-to-watch scenes involved handsome Richard Carlson who acts like a sap in a painfully sappy way. No wonder he was unable to continue his career after WWII. But oh, that Eddie Bracken, Hal Le Roy, and the always magnificent Anne Miller. Frances Langford shows how that band experience produced fabulous singers.Really, you'll be screaming in pain, choking your popcorn out in laughter, and popping your eyes over the over-the-top Busby-you-can-be-outdone dance numbers. And it has one of the best Rodgers and Hart songs ever, "I Never Knew What Time it Was," sung man to woman, and then, yes, man to man. Postmodern viewers will find some unintended gay laughs.So show it to your best friends, the only ones who'll understand and not throw a pillow at you.

didi-5 With obvious clumps of studio foliage, this movie must have certainly cost very little to make: however, it does have a few saving graces (Lucille Ball, Ann Miller, and Frances Langford amongst the girls; Richard Carlson, Desi Arnaz, and Eddie Bracken amongst the boys; a handful of good songs from the Rodgers and Hart show - including 'I Didn't Know What Time It Was'). Between the musical numbers it drags quite badly and seems pretty stilted - some of the script has lines like: 'we're handing our strip back'/'you mean you're going to play in the nude?'; 'I'm looking for the Stunted Hag.'/'No, this is the Hunted Stag.'; 'You know, that college that doesn't give its right name - Smith.' and so on.The tale of a wayward girl going to her father's cheapo alma mater and shadowed by four Ivy League students is not that original, or done in a particularly interesting way. But, at the few moments when the music kicks in, it just about saves itself from oblivion.