Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Sadly Over-hyped

From my favorite movies..

A Masterpiece!

There are so many things to recommend this delightful film. The cast is top notch (Alice Faye is outstanding in her numbers and she brings real pathos to her role as the ignored but adoring admirer of Dick Powell), the story silly and witty in that charming mid 1930s screwball comedy style and the score by Irving Berlin is one of his very best. There isn't one dud song here and all were written to order for the film - astonishing facility. However, I really rate this musical because of the way the numbers are filmed. One actually feels like one has been to the theatre to see a show and the staging is often remarkably elaborate. For example, "The Girl on the Police Gazette" makes use of an amazing continuous revolving set (the soundstage must have been huge to accommodate this) and appears to have been filmed in almost a continuous take. Think of the rehearsal that must have taken! The other reason to see it is the Ritz Brothers. I know that these zany comedians are an acquired taste and are often grating and irritating for modern audiences, but this is possibly their best vehicle and the closest we can get to seeing what they were really like in the theatre. Often referred to as a poor second rate alternative to the Marx Brothers, they were quite different in style and were really fabulous comedy dancers. The movies did them no favours at all in grounding their routines, forcing them to fit in with the plots of the films in which they appeared (consider their contributions to The Goldwyn Follies in 1938.....YUK!) Here, however, they are purely a speciality and their musical contributions are terrific. The parody they do on "Let's Go Slumming" with Harry Ritz in drag, dressed in the identical outfit worn by Alice Faye only moments before, is just priceless. I wish the print were in better shape but Fox has done the best it could with the surviving elements for the DVD release. Perhaps a Blu ray might improve definition further? I also miss the trailer which appears to be lost. However I have an acetate of the very entertaining radio promotional trailer (12 minutes long), should the folks at Fox wish to include it on any future release. Recommended viewing!

The problem with this movie is that Alice Faye should have had a bigger part and got her man at the end. In 1937 James Montgomery Flagg called Madeline Carroll the most beautiful woman in the world and in her American movies that was all that was required of her. Her beauty was of the icy kind and in "On The Avenue", as an aloof society beauty it was a role she could have played in her sleep. And, of course, you just knew that Gary Blake (Dick Powell) would found longer, lasting happiness with warm hearted Mona (Alice Faye) than wilful, spoilt Mimi (Madeline Carroll). Alice Faye was a fantastic singer with a beautiful smoky sounding voice. She was first heard on Rudy Vallee's radio show and it was through his recommendations that Fox Films put her under contract. At first she looked like a cheap copy of Jean Harlow with frizzy platinum hair, penciled eyebrows and gooey mascara. But over the years the studio softened her - until she was even nice enough to play opposite Shirley Temple!! "On The Avenue" was her first prestigious film but top billed Madeline Carroll was always going to end up with the guy - in this case Dick Powell, who was still in his musical period.Gary Blake's musical "On The Avenue", a satirical revue that pokes fun at a prominent society family, is the hit of the season. It is not amusing to the particular "prominent society family" and daughter, Mimi, who is singled out for ridicule meets with Gary to give him a piece of her mind. Of course being a "golden years" musical they fall in love - leaving sweet Mona, who is carrying a big torch for insensitive Gary, by the wayside. The course of true love doesn't run smooth and after witnessing a particularly barbed skit, Mimi secretly buys the show in order to embarrass Gary with a few surprises of her own thrown in.The most memorable thing about the film is Faye's singing of a couple of the most beautiful songs of the late thirties. "This Year's Crop of Kisses" and "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm" as well as the bouncey title song. Dick Powell gets to sing "The Girl on the Police Gazette" and the melodic "You're Laughing At Me". The cast is rounded out by the always good Alan Mowbray (who didn't have much to do), the Ritz Brothers, who seemed like an earlier version of Danny Kaye and Cora Witherspoon as a dizzy aunt, who was definitely no threat to Alice Brady.Recommended.

On the Avenue has a simple musical comedy plot. Dick Powell plays the lead actor and creator of a musical comedy on Broadway. When the wealthiest man in America and his daughter go to see it, they are annoyed to discover that a portion of the play is dedicated to mocking them. The girl (Madelein Carroll) gets steamed up, goes backstage, slaps Powell around, and then . . . they fall in love. He promises to change the play so it is less offensive to her, but the lead actress (Alice Faye) is in love with him and she manages to make it even more offensive when Carroll and her family come back to the theater to see it again. Carroll then gets revenge by buying the musical from its producers and sabotaging Powell's performance.It's a promising little plot, but the attempts at comedy they hang on it often misfire terribly. There are no three people more annoying than the Ritz Brothers, who seem to think that going cross-eyed is the height of comedy. And there is a scene where Powell and Carroll go to a diner and then laugh at the accent of its Greek owner . . . whoo-hooo hilarious. There is a laugh or two wedged in here and there, and some of the musical numbers are entertaining, but on the whole this thing is a bust.

Alice Faye's movie career was just getting into high gear when she did this gem in 1937. The Irving Berlin score is among the best he ever wrote for the screen and Alice does well with Let's Go Slumming on Park Avenue and This Year's Kisses. The former is somewhat autobiographical for her as Alice Faye was brought up in Hell's Kitchen and she sings it against a Hell's Kitchen background.In her early career at 20th Century Fox, Darryl Zanuck had a problem with finding someone who could sing opposite her. The only one available on the lot was Don Ameche. Zanuck's number one leading man, Tyrone Power, was non-musical. So Zanuck had to reach out to his former employer, Jack Warner, to borrow Dick Powell to play opposite Faye. Ironically Powell got the hit song out of this film with I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm.The rest of the cast is top rate. Madeline Carroll plays a typical 1930s débutante and it's the antics of her family and actor-writer Dick Powell's satire of same that form the basis of the story. My two personal favorites of the supporting cast are George Barbier who always hits the right note as Madeline's perennially choleric father and Billy Gilbert who has a great bit as a diner owner.Wonderful film, great entertainment.