DOWN TO EARTH (1947)

Broadway director Danny Miller (Larry Parks) is in the middle of rehearsals for his new show "Swinging the Muses," based on Greek mythology. He needs it to be a hit because when he racked up a big gambling debt to the gangster Joe Manion, he made a deal with Joe: back the show. If it's a hit, Joe will make a lot of dough; if it’s a flop, Danny will pay with his life. Meanwhile up in the clouds on Mount Parnassus, the muse Terpsichore (Rita Hayworth), goddess of song and dance, is angry over the show and its vulgar portrayal of herself and her sisters--in one song, the muse sings, "I put the ants in the pants of the dancers." She flits over to heaven and talks the angel Mr. Jordan into letting her visit Earth, with the plan to get the lead in the musical and exert pressure on Danny to make the show high art. Using the name Kitty, she barges into a rehearsal, dances so well that she steals the part from the lead, and does get Danny to make the show more serious. But those changes are a flop with critics and preview audiences, and it looks like Joe will come calling for Danny to pay his debt. But Mr. Jordan manages to manipulate things so Terpsichore understands what's at stake, and she allows Danny to stage the show the way he wanted, "for people who like jive, baseball and hot dogs." It's a hit and Danny is safe, but romantic complications between the goddess and Danny make her want to stay on Earth, with Mr. Jordan will not allow.

The heart of the narrative conflict here is high art vs. popular art, not an unusual theme in musicals of the classic era which often pitted opera against pop music or ballet against popular dance, with pop always winning out. Much of the middle of this movie anticipates 1953's THE BAND WAGON which uses a very similar plot device--a musical meant to be mindless fun is turned into a literal adaptation of Faust by a snobbish director and it's a flop until the show is rewritten for the masses. However, THE BAND WAGON had many legendary talents behind it, including MGM, Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, director Vincente Minnelli, and the songwriting team of Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz. This Columbia movie misses that mark by quite a bit; the only legend here is Rita Hayworth and for the most part she manages to carry the movie on her shoulders, but she is let down by pedestrian songwriting and direction, and a bland leading man. The frame for the story is borrowed directly from Columbia's 1941 fantasy HERE COMES MR. JORDAN which involves the angel Jordan allowing a dead person to visit Earth briefly to right a wrong. Claude Rains, Jordan in the original, is replaced here by the lesser Roland Culver, though Edward Everett Horton is fun repeating his earlier role as Heavenly Messenger 7013. Larry Parks isn't bad, but he and Hayworth don't strike many sparks, and she outdoes him wildly in looks and talent. But to touch on some positive notes: the movie is very colorful and the production numbers are fun (even if the songs are forgettable), and Rita Hayworth looks as gorgeous and dances as heavenly as she ever did. She is reason enough to sit through the movie, even if the ending falls flat--the romance plot can't be satisfactorily wrapped up. A couple of lines made me laugh: a pop song is mentioned called "Who Hit Nelly in the Belly with a Flounder?"; a stuffy society lady sniffs, "I adore musicals--I'm so tired of thinking." [TCM]