Just perfect...

Expected more

Best movie of this year hands down!

Absolutely Fantastic

Flirtation Walk is a 1934 musical starring Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, Ross Alexander, Pat O'Brien, John Eldredge, and Henry O'Neill.Powell plays Dick Darcy, a private stationed in Hawaii. He meets the general's daughter Kit (Keeler). The two fall for one another, but she's engaged to another (Eldredge). They break up.A few years later, they meet again, this time at West Point. Kit is still engaged, but very happy to see Dick. Feeling used by her, Dick rebuffs her and hurts her feelings.Dick has to write and appear the annual show, and the other cadets want Kit to play the lead. Dick refuses as women are not allowed, but the cadets appeal to her father, who gives the okay. I love Dick Powell. I'm not such a fan of Ruby Keeler, who was certainly very pretty and did some good films with Powell. I did not find this a scintillating musical. The music was dull, and the story was flat.I actually watched this to see if I could do what no one else has been able to - find Tyrone Power, who was a cadet in this film.The only reason he is listed on IMDb is that he became famous as he was not a featured cadet. He was an extra, probably answering a call for young men to be extras at West Point. He cannot be spotted. By the way, he and Linda Christian lived directly across the street from Dick Powell and June Allyson on Copa D'Oro in LA.Dick Powell had such a beautiful voice, but it wasn't used a lot or to great advantage here. In short, this can't hold a candle to "42nd Street" or "Dames," or other musicals of the era.

Flirtation Walk (Frank Borzage, 1934) is an entertaining if disjointed salute to the West Point military academy that flits from romantic comedy to putting-on-a-show musical to sentimental drama. Dick Powell is a happy-go-lucky private who joins officer training when he thinks he's lost the girl he loves (Ruby Keeler). Though the film doesn't really gel, there are some great sequences: Powell and Keeler falling in love in hazily-romantic Hawaii, his speedy rendition of Mr & Mrs Is the Name and the penultimate scene: an emotional encounter between the forlorn Powell and gruff, good-hearted sergeant Scrapper (Pat O'Brien). The rest is comprised of broad comedy, petty squabbling and lots of enthusiastically-choreographed marching. It's a wonder any young girls continued to idolise Powell after seeing him manufacture a quadruple-chin here - then maintain it through an entire montage. Incidentally, the curious, antiquated title comes from a romantic pathway in the film, which has a legend attached.

This film is not anywhere near "42nd Street" in terms of music and plot, but it has a few good moments. Ruby Keeler is a general's daughter who meets Army private Dick Powell when she makes a two day stop in Honolulu, on her way to Manila with her father. There is a pretty good moment early in the film when she falls madly in love with Private Powell (who she has known for two hours) when he sings "Aloha Oe" at a beach luau the two of them crash. Boy gets girl, boy loses girl, and boy gets girl once more, later in the film when he is the top cadet at West Point and her father is the new Superintendent at the Academy. The best song in this movie, "Mr. and Mrs. is the name," is part of the cadet musical Dick writes and produces.

FLIRTATION WALK (First National, 1934) directed by Frank Borzage, teams Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler for the fifth time, and the first to present their names above the title. When released in November 1934, this sentimental musical-comedy was so successful that it was nominated for an Academy Award for best picture, along with eleven (yes, 11!) other movies that year, but no win. The predictable plot begins in Hawaii in which Powell plays Army Private Richard Palmer Grant Dorcy, better known as "Canary," who meets and falls in love with General John Brent Fitt's (Henry O'Neill) daughter Kit (Ruby Keeler) on a two day visit at the base. Kit happens to be engaged to Lt. Robert Biddle (John Eldredge), but she doesn't care. She gets Dick to take her out for a moonlight drive, and they are later are caught embracing by Biddle. Fearing Dick would get court martialed, Kit discourages and cures the lovesick private before she leaves Hawaii. Determined to forget Kit and become an officer and a gentleman, Dick decides to leave Hawaii and enroll at West Point. After more than three years at the military academy, and close to graduation, Dick encounters Kit once more. (Her father is stationed there as the new superintendent). Dick then tries to ignore Kit and give her a hard time, but risks getting a dismissal from the academy when caught embracing Kit once more in her quarters by Biddle.Pat O'Brien co-stars as Scrapper Thornhill, Dick's sergeant in the first half of the story set in Hawaii, while Ross Alexander and John Arledge appear as the cadets in the second half set at West Point. Alexander, the one with the physical appearance of dancer Ray Bolger, supplies some fine comic touches here. Directed by two-time Academy Award winning director, Frank Borzage, FLIRTATION WALK focuses more on plot than musical interludes. Powell sings a little, but tap dancer Keeler does not do any fancy footwork here. There are no real lavish production numbers to speak of, with the exception of a Hawaiian luau some 20 minutes into of the story. The 15 minute segment of the Hundredth Night Show at West Point consists of songs by Allie Wrubel and Mort Dixon: "No Horse, No Wife, No Mustache," the lively and amusing "Mr. and Mrs. Is the Name" and the title song. Aside from scenes filmed in Hawaii and West Point, light comedy, sentimental moments and good tunes, Dick and Ruby are believable their roles, while Pat O'Brien, as a tough sergeant, isn't afraid to shed a tear, especially during Dick's West Point graduation. Quite different from the previous Powell and Keeler musicals, from Broadway theater setting to military background, which actually works to good advantage, although there is too much time devoted to plebe year and Powell reciting the definition of "Leather."FLIRTATION WALK was distributed on video cassette through MGM Home Video in 1992, and can be seen on the Turner Classic Movies cable channel. One final note: Although it's been said that future film star Tyrone Power appears as one of the extra cadets, he is so hard to find. (****)