You've got to hand it to MGM. By the late 1930's even their most middling B-pictures' production values would make most of the other studios green with envy. The question is why MGM would lavish their efforts on a predictable soap opera like SONG OF THE CITY-- whose implausible-yet-predictable story line should have never made it past a reader's desk. Implausible? Dean Jagger (as Jeffrey Dean) plays an introspective idler--- he's broke, but still manages to keep a servant on in his plush pad on Knob Hill (could Depression-era audiences really relate to this?) who's just blown through a $150K wad of his girlfriend's dough on a miscalculated stock deal. Don't fret, she's still got $19,850,000.00 to go and she inexplicably loves him. Deano goes on a bender across the bay and falls in the drink. He's rescued (remember this was riding on the crest of MGM's CAPTAIN'S COURAGEOUS) by a bunch of stereotypical Italian fishermen (Nat Pendleton, an Italian?) who happen to have a fetchin' singin' daughter. Complications ensure when the rich girlfriend wants him back. Yawn! Not really a musical, not much of a comedy... absolutely no relation to reality. Blah... 4/10
Review of Song of the City
