DELICIOUS (1932)

I read about this movie in "A Song in the Dark," a very good book by Richard Barrios on early Hollywood musicals, and then it cropped up on Fox Movie Channel. I was glad to be able to see it, even though it proved to be a disappointment, with a slow pace, indifferent acting, and, despite some songs by the Gershwins, unmemorable music. Janet Gaynor, one of the biggest box-office draws in the country at the time, is Scottish lass Heather who comes to the U.S. by ship to live with her uncle. Along the way, she bonds with a group of working-class immigrants (through music and dancing, just like DiCaprio does in TITANIC) including the handsome Russian Sascha (Raul Roulien). She also meets rich American Charles Farrell and his valet (El Brendel). Once she's landed, Gaynor is put back on the ship because her uncle can no longer afford to host her, but she manages to sneak off the ship winds up living in Farrell's mansion, being taken care of by Brendel. Gaynor is sweet on Farrell, but he has a bitchy fiancee (Virginia Cherrill) so Gaynor considers marrying Roulien, but Hollywood cross-class romance wins out in the end.

Farrell's voice is oddly high and light and doesn't match his handsome looks; Gaynor projects an appealing winsomeness, but her Scottish accent is terrible. Brendel's appeal escapes me completely; despite a Spanish-sounding name, he was an American vaudevillian who acted with a heavy Swedish accent, and he ends up seeming like a dumbed-down Chaplin figure. There is a good dream sequence in which Gaynor imagines what it will be like to land at Ellis Island ("Welcome to the Melting Pot"), and Brendel's high point is with the amusing song "Blah Blah Bla" (and in fact, Gershwin later turned the piece into his Second Rhapsody). The movie is tolerable, but mostly worth watching as a historical oddity, a movie musical done as Hollywood was, by trial and error, inventing the genre. [FMC]