Simply Perfect

People are voting emotionally.

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.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Yes, this is one of the more entertaining musicals of the post-WWII era. But, hardly anyone mentions the presence of Gail Robbins. Yet, she sang "All Alone Monday" in 2 settings:first as a nightclub act attended by the 3 main stars, and then as a trial in a stage setting. She also was briefly engaged to Skelton's character(Harry Ruby): the first of two redheads that Skelton's character woos. Unlike Vera-Ellen and Debbie Reynolds, her singing was not dubbed. In fact, she was a singer for a number of Big Bands and singing groups, including 'The Duchess and Her Dukes', was a pinup girl for the GIs, and sometimes toured with Bob Hope. Unfortunately, her film career went nowhere, with just a few bit parts here and there, including perhaps the most entertaining musical of them all:"Calamity Jane". Here,,she comes across as a blend of Rita Hayworth and Martha Raye, in looks and personality.It's clear from the start that Astaire's and Vera-Ellen's characters don't consider her an appropriate mate for Skelton, nor a social or professional equal to themselves.Skelton eventually decides that Arlene Dahl is the right redhead for him, and someone that Astaire and Vera-Ellen feel comfortable associating with. In contrast to Gail's sultry delivery, Dahl is portrayed as primly elegant, most clearly in her memorable slow staircase descent, as if she were a goddess, surrounded by men in top hats and tails, while singing "I Love You so Much". Judy Garland previously made a rather similar, though hurried, descent in "Till the Clouds Roll By" Later, Dahl sings "Thinking of You" to Skelton, cementing their romantic attachment.To my knowledge, this is Dahl's only singing role in her Hollywood career... Gloria DeHaven had a small part playing her mother, singing "Who's Sorry Now". Like Dahl and Robbins, she remained a minor Hollywood actress and eventually turned to various roles on TV. Her dancing and singing talent was given much more exposure in the film "I'll Get By", also released in 1950, in which she costarred with June Haver as a pair of sister singer-dancers.The title song isn't sung in its final form until the very end. The tantalizing possibilities of the tune serves as a running sore point between the two male stars through most of the film, although this has no factual basis. To me, Skelton's character was 95% Skelton and maybe 5% Harry Ruby. Apparently, the real Ruby didn't mind, as he has a bit part as one of Skelton's baseball teammates! Although Astaire commonly incorporated comedy into his musical roles,in this film, he is mostly Skelton's straight man. Although little known, both Skelton and Astaire composed numerous songs, including symphonies by Skelton.Through most of the film, Astaire appears to assume professional and social dominance over Skelton. This relationaship no doubt stems from the fact that the real Ruby initially was hired by Kalmar as a song plugger. Toward the end of the film, Skelton's Ruby is finally accepted as a near equal.Astaire and Skelton sing duets of several songs, most notably "My Sunny Tennessee" and the novelty song "So Long, Oo Long", the latter being my favorite.Of course, Vera-Ellen always made a virtually unrivaled dancing partner for the top MGM film dancers of the day, including Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor and Danny Kay, as well as being a classic beauty, in a girl-next-door way. But, she reportedly was introverted, from childhood, and this shows through sometimes, between musical numbers.Both she and Astaire have a solo dance routine, as well as several partnered routines.Their routine "Mr. and Mrs. Hoofer at Home" is the novelty dance highlight of the film, while their dances to "Thinking of You" and the standard "Nevertheless" are highlights for grace and elegance.This duo would star in one more musical: "The Belle of New York", this time without significant musical costars, and featuring new songs by Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer. Although this film has received much criticism, I find it at least as delightful as the present film and presently can be obtained cheaply as part of a DVD musicals set.The association between Astaire and Skelton gets off to a very rocky start, when Skelton's clumsiness turns Astaire's stage magic act into a complete disaster.The second half of the film involves more melodrama as the pair have a falling out for a few years. This manufactured melodrama has no factual basis, and sometimes gets a bit tedious. Of course, in the end,the love aspect of this relationship triumphs and the now 4 stars(with Dahl) join together in a farewell scene: a very common ending to musicals of this era.

By 1950 we'd had bio-pics of Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, George Gershwin and Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, giants all but in 1950 MGM offered a bio-pic of what in England we would call the Second Eleven, not quite the very highest level but just a tad behind. Three Little Words has been sadly neglected despite being far more accurate factually than all the other four put together. Where fact has been embellished is in small details - for example the two men never quarreled and never split up, there was a film actress named Eileen Percy and she did marry Harry Ruby but in the interests of dramatic tension a quarrel and a split was fabricated. Fred Astaire is alwayd worth the price of admission even when saddled with something as inept as Second Chorus and here, as Bert Kalmar he treats admirers to some excellent dancing and equally excellent acting. Though I've never been able to warm to Vera Ellen she cannot be faulted as Astaire's wife, similarly Red Skelton's appeal has always eluded me but here he manages to subdue this usual OTT schtick and turns in a fine performance as Harry Ruby. Throw in Gloria de Haven performing the great ballad Who's Sorry Now and we're talking wonderful movie.

Oh, how my heart was captured when I saw this musical biopic with great names like Fred Astaire (and even a very young Debbie Reynolds). It was beautiful to see the song and music writers grow on each other. Yes, I sensed the touch of Hollywood in this film and that was a pity, because I wanted to know everything about the persons behind songs like 'I wanna be loved by You' and other now famous songs. But it didn't really matter, because at the end it grew on me too. I had to cry a little, because I'm sentimental, and this movie touches the inner feelings of our minds with the music and words. Actually, I want to become a song writer too, all because of this picture. If there are other would be songwriters like me who saw themselves in the images of music and love, this film had found it's potential. Long live every future songwriter!

Wow -- what a joy and what a surprise this film really is! Besides the presence of Astaire and a few other cast members this film doesn't promise much, but it really delivers -- a lot of laughs, good music, great dancing, and most surprisingly of all, some solid performances from the whole cast including Skelton. I would even go so far as to say that this is probably the best musical bio-picture produced by MGM and only "The Jolson Story" strikes me as a stronger film among all the musical bio-pics I've seen period.When I see Red Skelton's name on a picture, I usually expect to see him mugging all the way to the bank like a vaudeville trooper with a gun to his head. But here he actually restrains himself and does a very good job, perhaps because he's playing a real person, songwriter Harry Ruby (who was credited as a technical adviser on this film). He's paired with Astaire's Bert Kalmar -- and Astaire responds with a performance that is likewise far more character-oriented than usual, and quite nuanced as he veers from anger to sentimentality. Astaire is paired with Vera-Ellen, one of his all-time best partners.The musical numbers were staged by Hermes Pan -- and it shows. These sequences are almost as impressive as those in "The Band Wagon" and "Singin' in the Rain" (with better music than "Rain"). I was particularly impressed with "Mr. and Mrs. Hoofer at Home", although I think it was too sophisticated for them to pass it off as a 1910s vaudeville number. But all is forgiven.As a side note, I found it really amusing how the Kalmar character and others seemed to think about pop music genres strictly in germs of their relationship to romanticized concepts of exoticism. For example he "fixes" Ruby's "Araby" song by turning it into a Mammy Song. And at one point while musing on the direction they should go with a song, Kalmar says "you know, there hasn't been an Oriental song in a while...." Kalmar's concept of an Oriental song being, of course, the ridiculous "So Long Oo-Long". I almost fell out of my chair laughing, and I'm not completely sure that the humor was unintentional.Of course this film probably bears little truth in terms of the reality of Kalmar's and Ruby's lives. But then neither did "Till the Clouds Roll By", "Night and Day" or "Rhapsody in Blue" ..... and at least this film was entertaining. The versions of Kalmar's and Ruby's songs are great -- in fact I read that seeing this film as a teenager inspired young Connie Francis to eventually sing the song "Who's Sorry Now?" and make it even more famous than it ever was before. I'm thinking that she probably won't be the last person inspired by this joyous film.