If "The Wizard of Oz" became "The Blue Bird" when the deal to lend Shirley Temple out to MGM failed, then the Mickey/Judy vaudeville musical became this musical comedy of showing the staid town leader a good time. Jack Oakie and Charlotte Greenwood are a popular vaudeville team who all of a sudden become parents when an old friend bequests them her baby in a basket. The baby grows up to be Shirley Temple, and like "Babes in Arms", her passage of time is documented by old clips of her early days. They work the vaudeville circuit until deciding to retire to a farming community, never telling Shirley that she was adopted. They find themselves up against the power mongering Kathleen Howard, who like Margaret Hamilton in "Babes in Arms", tries to stop the show in the barn from going on. It's only a matter of time before the truth comes out, leaving Shirley quite despondent.
This makes enough changes to be different, but with Mickey and Judy having moved into the spot once held by Shirley, it's obvious that this was influenced by that smash hit at MGM and what would wrap up Shirley's years at 20th Century Fox. One number, "We're not babies anymore", is a direct rip-off of "Babes in Arms" title song. Still moderately entertaining, in this case it's Charlotte Greenwood who came out the winner. Oakie is basically playing the types of roles that he'd been playing for a decade. In a sense, I didn't find Oakie and Greenwood's plans to liven up the town realistic, and yet didn't sympathize with the nasty Howard either. The way the truth about Temple's paternity comes out seems forced as well. It's good intentions for a combination of music, comedy and pathos that just doesn't really gel. A laughable sudden turn of events at the end just adds to the absurdity. Ironically, Shirley's next home (for one film) would be MGM, and it wasn't meant to last.
This makes enough changes to be different, but with Mickey and Judy having moved into the spot once held by Shirley, it's obvious that this was influenced by that smash hit at MGM and what would wrap up Shirley's years at 20th Century Fox. One number, "We're not babies anymore", is a direct rip-off of "Babes in Arms" title song. Still moderately entertaining, in this case it's Charlotte Greenwood who came out the winner. Oakie is basically playing the types of roles that he'd been playing for a decade. In a sense, I didn't find Oakie and Greenwood's plans to liven up the town realistic, and yet didn't sympathize with the nasty Howard either. The way the truth about Temple's paternity comes out seems forced as well. It's good intentions for a combination of music, comedy and pathos that just doesn't really gel. A laughable sudden turn of events at the end just adds to the absurdity. Ironically, Shirley's next home (for one film) would be MGM, and it wasn't meant to last.