SHINE ON HARVEST MOON (1944)

Competent show biz musical about the real-life performing and songwriting team of Bayes and Norworth, who wrote the title song. Apparently, as with most movie bios, there is little truth in this one, but the story moves along nicely and the performances are solid. Dennis Morgan is Jack Norworth, a vaudeville performer and songwriter who hits the big time as the composer of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." He discovers singer Nora Bayes (Ann Sheridan) in a dive singing one of his songs and soon he helps her on to bigger and better things; along the way they alienate a couple of folks: Morgan refuses to do a duo act with singer Irene Manning, and Sheridan makes a fool of club owner Robert Shayne. After Morgan and Sheridan marry, they find themselves blacklisted from vaudeville houses by Shayne; Manning, by now Shayne's mistress, agrees to help Morgan but only without Sheridan. Eventually, the couple part with her career rising as his falls, but a happy ending is in store. Most of the numbers are performed on stages, with "Shine On Harvest Moon" getting the grand Technicolor treatment as the finale (the rest of the film is in black & white) although there is one fun number, "It Looks Like a Big Night Tonight," that breaks out in a police station, with the cops joining in with the singing and dancing. Jack Carson and Marie Wilson provide strong support as buddies to Morgan and Sheridan, and S.Z. Sakall is his usual befuddled self as an agent. Pleasant, with lots of songs and period atmosphere. [TCM]