Belle of the Yukon (1944)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Supposedly set in the old Klondike at the time of the gold rush; we get a jokey opening narration similar to the prologue three years earlier to 'Louisiana Purchase' (1941) advising us in advance that we will be getting glossy escapism, not gritty realism. We see little of the film's hinterland setting beyond a brief shot of what looks like a black & white photograph of a couple of mountains; and the story could just as easily have been set in a speakeasy during prohibition or a contemporary New York nightclub. However, 'Belle of Chicago' or 'Belle of Brooklyn' wouldn't have had quite the same ring - or accommodated Don Loper's colossal saloon set in which most of the action takes place; and which along with his costumes and choreography (dressed in Technicolor by veteran cameraman Ray Rennahan) look as if they consumed about half the film's budget. All those chorus girls in glossy red lipstick flinging their legs in the air would also have been more likely to have encountered problems with the Hays Office in a contemporary setting. No one character ever seems to be the focus of the film; but being the tallest - as well as being Randolph Scott - a smiling Scott just about qualifies as the film's central character. Although in the title role, Gypsy Rose Lee functions more as Dinah Shore's female buddy; and with their long faces, matching blood red lipstick, alarmingly corseted dresses and vertical hairstyles could pass for sisters. The 'action' tends to consist mainly of the two girls singing about their burgeoning romantic passions, until there is finally a conclusion appropriate to a western when Robert Armstrong (who alone appears to be acting in something more rugged) organises a bank robbery to end the film with something passing for action.Some of the sets are sufficiently stylised to have possibly helped ten years later to inspire those for 'Red Garters'; or Vienna's saloon in 'Johnny Guitar'. The film's most eye-popping use of colour is saved for the final scene when the chorus are shot from below energetically dancing the Can-Can, although their pale green dresses flicking about their rose red petticoats manage to look remarkably like costumes from a two-colour rather than a three-strip Technicolor production.

The color of the Canadian territory of the Yukon is proudly displayed in this beautiful to look at semi-musical about a Saloon owner (Randolph Scott), his former flame (Gypsy Rose Lee) who arrives to entertain, the saloon's manager (Charles Winninger), and his pretty daughter (Dinah Shore) who is in love with a man supposedly married with children (William Marshall). Scott is involved in a scheme to defraud the local residents thanks to a phony professor ("Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" grandfather Victor Kilian) and when he is on the verge of being exposed by Ms. Lee, he changes his plans. Another villain (Robert Armstrong) uses this as an opportunity to take away the gold stashed in Scott's newly opened bank, while Sheriff Guinn "Big Boy" Williams has various supposedly humorous encounters with hick Bob Burns that usual end up with Burns holding Williams' gun. The last minor plot is unfunny, and gives Burns (a "B" star at Paramount in the 30's and early 40's) no sense in being there.However, the major plots of the story are the romances between Lee and Scott, and Shore and Marshall. There are obvious problems in the first romantic storyline; Scott is ill-defined as a supposedly honest saloon owner who would cheat his customers out of their gold. Also, Ms. Lee is a very wooden actress. When her character in the musical "Gypsy" exclaims that June (Havoc), her sister, was the one with all of the talent, she wasn't kidding. She was fine when making specialty appearances in the Fox musicals of the 30's, but to star in a film is downright silly of the producers. In the opening musical number, she has to keep saying over and over "Every girl is different". Not looking unlike MGM comic Virginia O'Brien, here she acts like her too, but without the hilarity that the delightful Ms. O'Brien had. (Watch "The Big Store" to see Ms. O'Brien "rock it baby" and try not hold your sides from laughing too much!) I laughed here, but it was more on account of how bad it was. And how many Saloons in the Yukon of this era had a stage that large? The production number has some elaborate costumes, but is simply bad. It's not even camp like "The Lady in the Tootie Frootie Hat".As for Dinah Shore, I enjoyed her TV show as a youngster and found her to be charming in some of her other films ("Thank Your Lucky Stars" and "Aaron Slick From Punkin' Crick"), but here, she is not only directed badly, but outfitted and made-up badly as well. She wears a red wig that does not suit her, and the scarlet lipstick and corsets make her appear to look like a cartoon character. I instantly thought of Helena Hyena from "Roger Rabbit" when I saw her in a too-tight corset that seemed to squish her waste down to 12 inches and give her an enormous backside and an outlandishly large top. I've heard of hour glass figures, but that sand couldn't get through the tiny little tube between the top and bottom! Obviously, Ms. Shore was not a trained actress, so one can't expect much, but she did much, much better in her other films, so obviously the director must be faulted. She did better in her cameo as herself in "Oh, God!" than she does here. William Marshall is handsome, and a good fit with Ms. Shore, but it is very obvious that he is innocent of what Shore's father (the delightful Charles Winninger) has accused him of.Winninger is hysterically funny with the little he has to do, drinking sasparilla throughout and choking on it. As Ms. Lee's companion, the delightful Florence Bates shines as well. They have a very cute romance that is quickly passed over. I would have loved to seen more of them, even though they are both past their prime. They are adorable together! It's hard to think of a worse color musical of the 40's (perhaps "The Kissing Bandit", but that had a few good songs and a few more good performances). Here, the songs are weak, the leading couple (Lee & Scott) have no chemistry, and the beautiful landscape is only fleetingly viewed. Unless you are a film connoisseur who must try to see every major release of every year movies were made, skip this one!

Belle of the Yukon is the kind of mid-Forties Hollywood misfire that can lead earnest cinephiles to make clever wisecracks. My advice...put the rented DVD in the player, start folding the laundry on the coffee table and enjoy yourself. The movie is something of an uncertain romantic comedy-musical-western with a clever con. Randolph Scott is Honest John Calhoun, charming and untrustworthy. Gypsy Rose Lee is Belle De Valle, a high class music hall entertainer. The river town of Malamute plays the Yukon during the gold rush days. Honest John and Belle have a history that goes back to Seattle, where Honest John, then Gentleman Jack, had to skedaddle just ahead of the law, leaving Belle in the lurch. When Belle shows up with her troupe of dancers to play the music hall in Malamute, she finds the owner is Jack, now Honest John. He swears he's reformed. She's not so sure...there's a lot of gold dust in the town. When Honest John, who doesn't gamble, suggests the town pick an upright, non-gambling man to start a bank, guess who gets picked. We know the con is on, but we're not sure what the con is. Not to be too critical, but the director, William Seiter, gives us plodding direction even as the Technicolor photography looks like a million dollars. The dance hall costumes and Belle's dresses are so garish even Vincente Minnelli would have gawked. With one exception, the songs are no more than Hollywood professional. The acting varies from satisfying (Scott) to interesting in a kind of unformed way (Lee) to standard cliché (Charles Winninger and Guinn Williams) to pre-nostalgia (Bob Burns sounding like what Andy Griffith will) to really awful (Dinah Shore and William Marshall). The important thing to remember, while reining in the temptation for MST3K commentary, is that this is all done with good humor and good intentions. There are happy endings all over Malamute. Belle of the Yukon does no harm. Gypsy Rose Lee with her 37-23-36 figure, her great voice and her ability to make dialogue sound like one-liners can be forgiven for being no actress. I doubt if she ever thought of herself as one except when she was stripping. She seems to be enjoying herself. She was an intelligent, honest woman with a fine, skeptical sense of humor. She even wrote a best- selling mystery, The G-string Murders. Even though she probably received some help from Craig Rice, a good friend, she did most of the heavy writing herself. Barbara Stanwyck played a bumping, grinding Gypsy Rose Lee, now named Dixie Daisy, in Lady of Burlesque: The G- String Murders, the movie made from the book. William Wellman directed. It's a movie worth seeing. I'd skip the lumbering movie made from the Broadway hit Gypsy, based on her autobiography. The television special of Gypsy starring Bette Midler isn't bad. Gypsy Rose Lee had to grow up fast. Dinah Shore and William Marshall play the young lovers. Shore is Lettie Candless, daughter of Honest John's saloon manager. Lettie is an innocent young woman who sings at the music hall. Shore has two major romantic songs that stop the movie dead in its tracks. "Like Someone in Love" is pleasant enough, but the numbers were used only to showcase Dinah Shore. They are as out of place as...well, as romantic ballads in a Yukon music hall. The makeup department did Shore no favors. Her bright red Technicolor lipstick emphasizes how much teeth she has, Reassuringly, the older Shore got the more interesting she became. Maturity suited her. William Marshall plays Steve Atterbury, the music hall's piano player. Marshall was a big, passive guy without, as far as I can tell, any acting talent. He got by on impressively blond good looks. Close your eyes and you'd think you were listening to the high school lead in Brigadoon. Randolph Scott is just fine as a friendly, well-dressed saloon owner you'd be wise not to trust. He's often been the best thing in the movies he's starred in. I enjoy watching his old- fashioned (by current tastes) approach to good guy Hollywood leading men.

There weren't many Technicolor movies made during World War II because of military needs, but Hollywood generated a few. A 1944 RKO Radio Picture with a title like BELLE of the YUKON led me to expect a hootin' tootin' shootin' western yarn with an up-north setting. Wrong, McGee! This one is 75% musical comedy and 25% western, with big Broadway style production numbers rigged-up on the saloon stage. What you get is songs by Dinah Shore and Gypsy Rose Lee, quite a few running-gags, and a minor plot about a bank robbery. Almost no gunfire, no horseback chases, no real action.The 3-strip Technicolor of 1944 yielded stunning photography, but do not look for it here. Hollywood studios were poor caretakers of their old movies and this one is badly faded. Call this Exhibit A about Hollywood's snow job to the public concerning the quality of sound and image on DVD's. What they did was a careful clean-up job on a very few old films (such as To Have and Have Not) in order to sell the concept. But that's done with. Now they give us DVD's with C- to D+ quality, no better and often worse than VHS.