Hullabaloo (1940)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Best movie ever!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Frank Morgan who is the top billed player in this B film from MGM is a deadbeat dad. An old vaudevillian, Morgan is trying to get a break in radio because he really needs the money.In Hullabaloo Frank Morgan has got three ex-wives with a child by each and these women want the back alimony that Morgan hasn't sent them for years. This formidable trio of ex-wives are Connie Gilchrist, Sara Haden, and Billie Burke and their kids respectively are Virginia Grey, Leny Lynn and Larry Nunn.The kids kind of bond with each other and together they help dear old dad pull together a radio show. It's either that or marry a 4th time to Nydia Westman who is sponsor Donald Meek's sister.Dan Dailey is here as a radio executive and love interest for Virginia Grey and another Virginia, O'Brien that is gets a couple of songs to sing in her deadpan fashion. The real revelation is Charles Holland an opera singing bellhop. Not too many black artists were doing material like that for films in 1940.Because it's lovable old Frank Morgan the whole thing works somehow. But I doubt a deadbeat dad would get treated so well in today's cinema.

Having been trying to get up to bat for ages, comic genius wannabee deals with three ex-wives, overpowering radio show sponsors and voices of popular movie stars in his head as he tries desperately to get on the air. A gifted mimic, Morgan has the ability to imitate people around him, and his imitations of MGM contract players Robert Taylor, Mickey Rooney and Hedy Lamarr (to mention a few) which makes you wonder if these stars spent a day providing their voices for this film unbilled. Morgan starts off his gimmick spoofing "The War of the Worlds" which of course leads to panic and two welders being confused with martians. Virginia O'Brien has her first major part on screen, singing two standards in her deadpan manner to great hilarity. Charles Holland has a fine voice as the bellhop who gets two numbers as well, but of a more serious nature. A minor plot has radio show producer Dan Dailey dealing with a jealous fiancée who is vindictive towards singer Virginia Grey trying to get her first break.A great ensemble of comic supporting players dominates the main plot concerning Morgan, with Donald Meek as the sponsor, Nydia Westman as his widowed sister-in-law who takes a fancy to Morgan, and Billie Burke, Sara Haden and Connie Gilchrist as his three ex-wives. Reginald Owen, Barnett Parker and Leo Gorcey also appear. This is a nice little B picture from MGM which makes it an A on other studio budgets.

Virginia Obrien sure steals the opening scenes as she cracks jokes between lines of her own singing performance, staying completely deadpan all the while. We get a glimpse of Frank Morgan, who is trying to audition at a radio station, but doesn't get in. Aside from some good actual singing performances, there's just so much going on here, we need a score card to keep track of it all; There's the comedy bit with lead Frank Merriweather (Frank Morgan) and his butler over what they will call the butler, but it falls flat. Then there is the ex-wives routine with all the wives and grown up children, which is just confusing. Morgan's stammering, blustering, wisecracking, muttering character is just an hour and a half of vaudeville jokes, which is quite fun to watch, but doesn't really help the plot along. He actually does the "that was no lady, that was my wife!" bit during a bit with his family; See 15 year old Larry Nunn, and 15 year old Leni Lynn do a couple song and dance numbers with Morgan as he tries to get his children into show business. At the same time, Merriweather gets fired for scaring the public with a radio show that mimics one that had just happened in real life a few years prior. He spends the rest of the movie trying to get his job back at the radio station. Keep an eye out for Leo Gorcey (one of the Bowery Boys) and Donald Meeks (from the W.C. fields movies) Morgan does a zillion imitations, but about half of them are the actual actors voices... it would have been funnier to have Morgan just try to imitate them, instead of using the actual actors voices. When Morgan starts spouting Claudette Colbert from "It happened one night", it's pretty obvious that it couldn't be Morgan doing ALL the voices. Billie Burke (Glenda, the good witch) is one of the ex-wives, in her usual flitting about way. A neat trick of doubling-up on the songs here -- at the beginning of the film, and again near the end, Virginia O'Brien does stepped-up jazz versions of songs that had just been sung by someone else. Also a couple of excellent singing performances by Charles Holland, who always appears in his bellhop uniform. Have not been able to find out anything about his professional career, but what a set of lungs! It appears this film was made into a weekly TV show by NBC in the 1960s. Fun to watch Morgan, and the others do their showbiz bits, but as others have pointed out, plot line is pretty weak.

Frantic unfunny comedy about how Frank Morgan panicked the nation on radio -- a gloss on Orson Welles' broadcast of WAR OF THE WORLDS -- and the lives, loves and generally unfunny situations surrounding his newfound success. Frank Morgan doubles sixteen times a second and an impossibly young Dan Dailey plays the juvenile lead. Give it a miss.