I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

This is one of two filmed versions of George & Ira Gershwin's musical-Girl Crazy-I'm reviewing on this site. This one stars Bert Wheeler & Robert Woolsey as they end up in the West. Child performer Mitzi Green does some imitations during the "But Not for Me" number. Bert has another number with frequent female co-star Dorothy Lee. Kitty Kelly does the "I Got Rhythm" song which was partly choreographed by Busby Berkeley who later did that number in the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland version of GC. Oh, and among the players is Stanley Fields who makes a very funny nemesis for the comedy team. I mainly remember him as the sheriff in my favorite Laurel & Hardy movie, Way Out West. In summary, this version of Girl Crazy may not have a lot of the Gershwins' songs but it does have plenty of hilarity so there's that! P.S. Norman Taurog did retakes for this movie. He'd eventually direct the Mickey/Judy version of GC.

When the screenwriter got ahold of the book of the smash hit 1930 Broadway musical, they didn't just take scissors to it. They demolished it with a weed whacker. Gone other than the basic story of a city slicker deemed as "girl crazy" who is sent out to find manhood in the wild, wild west is the bulk of George and Ira Gershwin's unforgettable score. What remains is a mixed bag of typical old vaudeville gags as evidenced by the casting of Wheeler and Woolsey in the top-billed roles.Wheeler is a rather dim-witted Chicago cab driver hired by Woolsey to drive him to Arizona (!) so he can work the crap tables and his wife (Kitty Kelly) can sing at the dude ranch club opened by their city slicker pal (Eddie Quillan). Wheeler is convinced to run for sheriff, but grizzled Stanley Fields threatens to shoot anybody who gets into the sheriff's office other than him. Romance follows for Quillan who takes up with a postal delivery girl (Arline Judge), and Wheeler finds romance with pretty Dorothy Lee. But with Fields out to shoot Wheeler and Judge being romance by a lecherous New Yorker (Brooks Benedict), their chances of getting together seem unlikely.Kelly, no relation to the infamous author of some tell-all autobiographies of Sinatra, Taylor, the Reagans and the Bushes, gets to sing Ethel Merman's star-making song, "I Got Rhythm", and does a decent job with it. The musical number is highlighted by some comical effects, including dancing cactus, a moosehead on the wall which sways, and a bartender (silent comic Monte Collins) whose hair skids back and forth to the rhythm. "Bidin' My Time" sets up the story of all the previously slain sheriffs by showing the local graveyard and a new tombstone being put in. "Never made it to office", the stone says, making you wonder which sap will be next. "But Not For Me" is embarrassingly performed by Mitzi Green (as Wheeler's pesky sister who won't stop demanding that somebody listen to her imitations), Quillan and Judge, and reprised by Green doing mimics of Crosby, stutterer Roscoe Ates, monocled George Arliss, and most hysterically, nose twitching Edna May Oliver. A little bit of that goes a very long way.This seems almost like an after thought, rushed together to capitalize on the show's success and to give Wheeler and Woolsey a vehicle exploiting their talents. It seems lame when compared with the Mickey/Judy MGM version filmed a decade later. That is why Leo the Lion roars at the beginning before the Radio tower begins to beep. On its own, it is acceptable entertainment, with a very funny chase scene between Wheeler and cop Nat Pendleton who is mistaken for a dummy earlier accidentally attached to the back of the cab. The scenes with Wheeler and Woolsey hiding out from Fields are retreads of what they already did in "Rio Rita" and "The Cuckoos", although Woolsey's attempts at hypnotizing Fields are amusing. One of the Mexican senoritas who flirts with the boys is future ingénue Rochelle Hudson. Even though the film is ultimately a mixed bag, it ends on a very funny pre-code note that is the icing on the cake. It's just too bad that the cake is mostly stale.

Easy. First you remove most of the songs, and then you give one of the most popular comedy teams of the day nothing to work with. All downhill from there. I really don't understand why the producers removed songs and inserted a couple of tuneless ones in their place. The new ones sounded like Gershwin rejects they had stashed in a trunk somewhere. "I Got Rhythm" could have been a show-stopper but it took place in a night club, in one of the most bizarre, surreal musical numbers ever committed to film. I think jaw-dropping is an apt term.In the early 30's, Wheeler and Woolsey were one of the best comedy teams extant. They had made "Hook,Line and Sinker", and "Half Shot At Sunrise", both in 1930. Now, those were funny pictures with good, funny material. "Girl Crazy" was reissued with "Peach-O-Reno" by Warner Archives collection, and there is hardly an unforced laugh in either one. Dreadfully unfunny movies.I could go on and on but why bother. My rating is more a reflection of disappointment than anything else. But The Gershwins and Wheeler and Woolsey deserved better.

Mr. Oliver summed up "Girl Crazy" very well. I found a collecter's copy of this, mostly to catch Mitzi Green's performance. Mitzi, born in 1920, worked in fifteen films before she was thirteen. Mitzi, at least in this film, was completely different than anything before or after her. Not the sweet, loving little girl... not Mitzi. Here she's a 12 year old flapper, with just the right amount of brattyness to be sweet, smarter than anyone else, and with a talent for "imitations" of the popular singers of the epoch. She had only one short tap dance number that didn't really show her talent. And I'll bet her colleagues loved working with her... for once a child actress who isn't a scene stealer!Much to my surprise, I found this practically forgotten film has a score and lyrics by the Gershwin brothers, and one of the funniest casts ever, none of whom I'd ever heard of. I generally avoid comedies like the plague, mostly because the modern ones don't seem to be very funny, but this comedy is fast, non-stop, and really funny, right down to the uncredited walk-ons. The scenes & jokes are clever, instead of stupid.... multi-faceted jokes and intelligent slapstick that never lags. The speed and cleverness of it reminds me of the first few minutes of "Romancing the Stone". Only a few of Mitzi's films are available on video in the classics collectors' market. Her screen time is limited to about 15-20 minutes but, as always, she's worth watching and remembering. The combination of Wheeler & Woolsey, the Gershwin bros. and Mitzi Green make this a film well worth seeing.