Naughty But Nice (1939)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

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

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

The title is more provocative than the movie itself. The story, about a college professor who gets drawn into swing music and nightclub escapades, seems like a precode leftover. Except, because the Hays Office is hovering over the production, it doesn't get too shocking; in fact, everything stays relatively tame. Dick Powell has the main role, but since it was his last film at Warners, he was "demoted" and given second billing under Ann Sheridan who doesn't turn up until the 23-minute mark, then disappears for stretches at a time. Sheridan is cast as a sultry singer, and she is truly a knockout; it's a shame she and Powell didn't get a chance to do more pictures together. NAUGHTY BUT NICE has some amusing moments, and these are generally furnished by the character players. Helen Broderick is on hand as Powell's bohemian aunt; ZaSu Pitts plays another aunt, of the more straight-laced variety; and Jerry Colonna appears in a fun musical segment. The plot, if we can call it one, hinges on Powell coming out of his shell. But it doesn't seem to take much to turn his world upside down. This is evidenced in a scene where for the first time in his life he's had too much to drink and ends up hanging from a chandelier. The wild display is caught on film by a newspaper photographer, which quickly leads to a meeting with the aunts who disagree about how he should conduct himself. A short time later, he's back on the prowl hanging out with Sheridan, who takes advantage of his sweetness. She invites him up to her apartment and proceeds to help him get drunk again. We know this will lead to other things that could disgrace the family and probably jeopardize his job at the college. It's not as pedestrian as it sounds. And despite a script that doesn't really challenge the cast, they all manage to make a decent effort and provide a solid, swinging piece of entertainment.

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.

As a Dick Powell fan, the premise of this picture sounded great: a college music professor, despite his disapproval of "swing" music, ends up becoming the best-selling composer on the pop hit parade. The comic opportunities in this scenario, not to mention Powell's mellifluous singing voice, are needlessly squandered however--no doubt this movie disappointed Powell's fans back in '39 as much as it did this viewer in 2001.The story promises great things and delivers on none of them:Powell writes hit songs with a beautiful lyricist, but we never see them working together. Powell never even sings in this picture, despite 5 new songs by the same team (Johnny Mercer & Harry Warren) who gave us "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby" which Powell crooned to Olivia de Havilland in the previous year's "Hard to Get".They don't even let Dick Powell BE Dick Powell: he plays a nerdy guy lacking in social grace and appeal--and two women vie for his attention. Granted, Powell plays a convincing, somewhat lovable "four-eyed" geek, but the plot keeps hinting that, with a few potent "lemonades", he's a dancing dynamo and the life of the party! But everytime he heads out to the dance floor to strut his stuff there's a fade out and we only find out what a blast he had the night before from an item in the newspaper.What great fun it might have been if the college prof learned to sing, swing and love. But he stays a nerd, writes hit tunes reluctantly and ends up with the girl formulaically without a spark between them. [Sigh...]