Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Dick Powell stars with Ann Sheridan and Gale Page in "Naughty but Nice," a film from 1939 that also features Helen Broderick and Zasu Pitts, Ronald Reagan, Allen Jenkins and Max Rosenbloom.Powell is Professor Hardwick who teaches at Winfield College and hates swing music, which is the new craze. He has written a piece, classical of course, and he goes to New York to have it published.He stays with his Aunt Martha (Broderick) who loves swing as do all her friends. A nondrinker, he develops a love for lemonade which is actually a Hurricane and drinks them like juice, becoming bombed.He finally sells his piece to Eddie (Reagan), and he has Linda McKay (Page) put lyrics to it -- and turn it into a big swing number, performed by Zelda (Sheridan). Eddie and McKay are the Rogers & Hammerstein of swing, but Zelda wants in, not only wanting to sing, but having the music published by Hudson, the Home of the Hits. Lots and lots of music, and this is such a nice cast. However, somewhere the movie went awry. For one thing, it's too long. It was hard to stay interested in it.I should have liked it a lot more. Warren and Mercer were responsible for most of the songs, and some of them were based on classical pieces. Somehow it just fell flat. A shame.

NAUGHTY BUT NICE works. Dick Powell plays a daffy professor, but the real sparkle is from Helen Broderick as the big city aunt who does the jazz thing, gets her visiting nephew, an aspiring classical composer, involved in the wonderful world of pop jazz songwriting. He's a success, despite the criticisms of his University dean (Halliwell Hobbes) and his three quasi-abolitionist sisters (Vera Lewis, Elizabeth Dunne, and the always fascinating Zasu Pitts).Good film. The Ed "Eddie" Clark character handled a team of songwriters, and while Powell was tricked into working for another, his love interest worked for the Clark team. I found myself standing whenever Clark appeared on screen.

Naughty But Nice is the story of a professor of music (Dick Powell) who wants his rhapsody to be published. His innocence and lack of taste buds rope him into a contract writing popular music with a female singer (Gale Page), a style that he hates. He becomes hugely popular, and another singer (Ann Sheridan) attempts to steal his talents for herself through shady means.It is very strange to see Powell in such a film as the character he is. He is an extreme intellectual at the expense of his charm and handsomeness. He does get to show off his beautiful voice, but it is quickly and not very memorable. Zasu Pitts, a former silent movie star, makes a favorable impression as an eccentric and funny aunt of Powell.There are some very enjoyable parts to the film, especially the bits about the lemonade, but it is rather predictable in places and somewhat dull in others.

With the filming of Naughty But Nice, Dick Powell ended his contract with Warner Brothers and never set foot on that lot again. He wanted desperately to do dramatic material and Warners gave him nothing but lightweight stuff. It would be another four years before he was able to convince someone to cast him in drama and RKO got a genuine hit in Murder My Sweet when they did.Powell plays a sheltered music professor at a very snobby college who's been raised by three maiden aunts. The character is obviously ripped off from Cary Grant's paleontology professor in Bringing Up Baby. He's written a concerto, but music publisher Ronald Reagan sees some popular tune in it and publishes it as such.Powell than becomes the object of singer Ann Sheridan's and lyric writer Gale Page's romantic and business desires. The fun is seeing who he winds up with.Harry Warren and Al Dubin who wrote some really great songs for Dick Powell in those Busby Berkeley films write absolutely nothing of consequence here. In any event Powell wanted desperately out of musicals.Especially stuff like this.