Touches You

Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Perfectly adorable

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

An intriguing entry whichever way way you look at it, unavailable for many years and even now I caught it in what may well be a one-off screening. In my case I had several reasons for catching it: 1) The score, which boasts two standards, 2) a chance to see Gypsy Rose Lee, 3)William Marshall had a featured role, and that's about it. The score was the work of composer Jimmmy Van Heusen and lyricist Johnny Burke, who got together in the early forties and were staff writers at Paramount supplying songs for five of the seven 'Road' pictures (Burke did the first, Singapore, with James V. Monaco and Van Heusen did the last, Hong Kong, with Sammy Cahn) plus virtually everything Crosby did in the forties at Paramount, so this was a rare sortie to another Lot. William Marshall was married to two outstanding French Actresses, Michele Morgan and Micheline Presle and I'm a French movie buff and thirdly I have never actually seen Gypsy Rose Lee herself although I have seen both the Broadway Musical and Film adaptation of Gypsy albeit it centres on her mother. I'm glad I finally got to see it if only to hear Dinah Shore - who they contrive to make look like a freak - perform Like Someone In Love and Sleighride In July.

Colorful minor musical is of interest mostly as a chance to get a glimpse of Gypsy Rose Lee in one of her few movie appearances. She offers a pleasant performance, nothing special but full of personality. It also has some eye popping costumes in vivid Technicolor and Gypsy's hair is done up in some truly gravity defying styles throughout. Dinah Shore doesn't make much of an impression, her high sweet thin voice is put to service on some forgettable songs but in the acting department she is woeful. Fortunately the supporting cast of old pros is there to prop up the shaky leads with Florence Bates, usually cast as stuffy matrons, fun as Gypsy's flashy traveling companion.

This is a weird Randolph Scott film, as it's not exactly a western (it's set in the Yukon, not the American west) and practically nothing really happens in the film! Seriously, it's a nice assemblage of characters and they act and interact but there really is very little tension and not much of a consistent plot. Odd, but still likable enough.Aside from Scott, the film has a good collection of character actors. Guinn Williams plays a typical affable idiot (like he played in almost all his films), though where his character goes at the end of the film was VERY unlike his other roles. Dinah Shore is on hand to sing a few songs. Charles Winninger plays the usual Winninger type character. Robert Armstrong is kind of a villain....sort of. Now here's the odd one--Gypsy Rose Lee (the famous stripper) is Scott's love interest, though in this film she keeps her clothes on and shows no signs of her former career.The plot, for what it is, is about all the characters. Scott, in an odd move, isn't even the main focus of the film--he's just there. While I could try to explain them and what they did, it seemed like the film makers just told everyone to wing it! There is some sort of plot near the very end about stolen gold, but it occupies very little of the film.Overall, watchable and not a bad film...just not a really good one either.

One could envy the first movie viewers who saw this flick in 1944. It's a gorgeously colorful film with a lot of good looking women floating around. You would quickly realize that the so called Western plot is just something strung between the comic and musical numbers, most of which are good old fun. There's a number of regulars among the actors, as well as some newcomers and less familiar faces. Dinah Shore takes some getting used to, but she sings and handles humor quite well. Gypsy Rose Lee is sort of a slimmed down Mae West who tosses off her lines like she's throwing gloves to a cheering crowd. It would have been nice if Hollywood had made more use of her.And Randolph Scott is a good sport about it all.So when you've got the time and want some light entertainment, this is it.