Sadly Over-hyped

ridiculous rating

Lack of good storyline.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The running time of 70 minutes indicates that this film was intended as a "B"-feature, or at best as the top half of a strong double bill. Yet, by "B"-feature standards, it has been rather lavishly produced. It opens in the hamlet of Lone Star, Texas, where a couple of hundred of the citizenry have gathered to farewell the heroine. Soon afterwards, we find ourselves plumb in the centre of the jostling, crowded streets of New York City, and it is not until that scene has concluded that we pick up Messrs Reagan and Morris and not until they have had a run-in with Hobart Cavanaugh that the curtain finally opens on the interior of their office (where it is safe to assume the original play was set). The film then settles down to lots of talking, but the impression of a filmed stage play is lessened by the rapidity of the talk, the general fast pace and swift movement of the proceedings with characters dashing madly from one door to another, and the fact that the screenwriters have opened the play up with many brief excursions to other sets and scenes. The bulk of the action however, still takes place in the office. And the fact remains that the film is still a rather talky 69 minutes. Some songs would help to provide relief. Not only could they have been inserted quite naturally into the action, they would have fleshed out the film's running time to "A"-feature length. However, we have to judge the film as it is, and not as we would like it to be. The basic idea of the plot was used again, with considerable variations, by Mel Brooks in The Producers, a much funnier and much wittier film. The plot is old-hat and the characters of An Angel From Texas are one-dimensional caricature - still, for all their lack of dimension, they are played with considerable vitality. Wayne Morris and Ronald Reagan are ideally cast as a couple of fast-talking confidence men - and they are more believable in this type of role than as the sympathetic hero figures they so often attempted to portray! Eddie Albert is perfect too as the schnook of the title and while Rosemary Lane makes little impression as the heroine there is a solid supporting cast headed by Jane Wyman (looking more attractive here than in her later films as queen of the Universal weepies), Ruth Terry (a delightfully vindictive leading lady), Hobart Cavanaugh (the put-upon Robelink), Milburn Stone (a flashy gangster), Tom Kennedy and Ralf Harolde (his amusingly sinister strong-arm boys). John Litel over-acts his brief part as an attorney, but the rest of the cast is first-rate. Ray Enright's direction is very smooth, his fast pacing and deft timing making the situations and wisecracks as funny as possible. Other production credits are likewise professionally able. The music score is pleasant, the costumes and sets reasonably attractive, the film editing unobtrusive. Enright knows when and how to use the camera to get an effect: there are some pleasing uses of the track and dolly early on in the film. Generally, however, the camerawork like the lighting photography is inclined to be routine.

Strictly a by-the-numbers routine Warner Bros. programmer with RONALD REAGAN and WAYNE MORRIS as brash Broadway would-be producers in need of money to put on a Broadway show. Familiar territory for many a flimsy film plot. EDDIE ALBERT is the country bumpkin they try to con into putting his $20,000 into backing the show--thus the film's title AN ANGEL FROM Texas.The fast-talking routines by Reagan, Morris and a very blonde and bleached JANE WYMAN at her snappiest are hardly the stuff of "bright farce" as an original review from The N.Y. Times states. The dull ROSEMARY LANE is supposed to be a gal with ambitions to become a great actress.They're all capable performers and give their all to a tiresome show biz story that never is anything more than a routine programmer not worth a second look--or even a first one.Based on a play by George S. Kaufman, it's strictly small time stuff, directed in the usual Warner Bros. frenzied style by Ray Enright.

Eddie Albert follows his sweetheart from Texas to Manhattan. She wants to be a great star, a la Madame Cornell. He is not interested in the stage but crafty producers Morris and Reagan talk him into becoming the title character.All the above give it their very best. Albert is a truly appealing, underrated performer and he is charming here. In addition, Jane Wyman is hilarious as one of the producer's wife who gets in on the act. When we first see her she is wearing a geometrically shaped hat, like those worn by Irene Dunne when she was playing chic and not frumpy. But this hat is covered in spangles. The hat alone is worth talking a look.Ruth Terry is also very entertaining as the diva originally hired to play the lead in the play. One big question, regarding her and her cronies' tenacity, is whether or not there were any other plays on Broadway at the time this takes place. The play is not the greatest and her attachment to it is peculiar.The rest -- Well, no giving away the plot. Suffice it to say that "Curtain Call" does something quite similar and is as stylish, funny, and polished as this is increasingly desperate and ramshackle.

This Warner Brothers movie uses its juvenile B leads from BROTHER RAT in another version of George Kaufman's BUTTER AND EGG MAN. The dialogue is sharp and brittle, but only Ronald Reagan as a fast-talking, down-at-the-heels Broadway producer and Jane Wyman are spot on. Wayne Morris is miscast as Reagan's partner and Eddie Albert is dull in yet another go around as a put-upon nice guy.Jane Wyman was a wonderful comic actress at this stage in her career and this was precisely her meat: hair bleached blonde and talking a mile a minute. Unfortunately, in a few years she would win an Oscar for playing a mute in JOHNNY BELINDA and would never get a chance to be this entertaining again.