GREENWICH VILLAGE (1944)

One of the sillier of the Fox showbiz musicals, late in the cycle; even being in color doesn't help liven this one up. Don Ameche is a would-be composer of classical music from the Midwest who visits New York in 1922 and becomes enamored with Greenwich Village, the artistic, bohemian section of Manhattan (in much the same fashion as Ewan McGregor falls in love with the bohemians of MOULIN ROUGE, though the colorful crazies in that movie seem much more authentic than the bland types on display here). Nightclub owner William Bendix wants to back a Broadway revue and Ameche takes on the task of writing the music. He falls in love with singer Vivian Blaine (who definitely shows more personality than Fox's usual ingenue Alice Faye) and that's about it for the plot, except for a half-hearted story thread in which Ameche thinks he's being taken advantage of by Blaine and Felix Bressart. Carmen Miranda drifts in and out the proceedings as a fake fortune teller who winds up in the show, and B. S. Pully (best known for his unusual name and for playing a gangster in GUYS AND DOLLS) is the doorman. One of the more interesting things about the film is who was left on the cutting room floor. A group called the Revuers was hired to perform a couple of numbers, but both were cut out and we only see them in the background of a couple of scenes. Among the Revuers were future hit show writers Adolph Green and Betty Comden, and future Oscar winning actress Judy Holliday. The musical numbers are OK, with the best ones being a dance routine by the Four Step Brothers, and a very fun bit featuring seven uncredited black musicians who come springing out from behind instruments to play and dance. The atmosphere is distinctly un-bohemian, which hurts the film; the only touches of local color are a couple of mannish women and artists in glasses and goatees. [FMC]