MUSIC IN MY HEART (1940)

Englishman Bob Gregory (Tony Martin) has been an understudy to the actor playing the Gay Guardsman in a hit Broadway musical. He's never had the chance to play the role, and with his work visa expiring, he's about to be sent back home. The lead actor, taking pity on Bob, fakes an illness, allowing Bob to go on and enjoy a moment of glory. Afterward, on the way to the ship set to take to England, his taxi collides with another taxi containing Pat (Rita Hayworth), fiancée of the wealthy but stuffy Charles Spencer Gardner III. She was supposed to meet Gardner on the same ship Bob was heading for, but the accident makes them both miss the ship. Of course, romantic sparks fly and when she finds out that the feds may come after Bob, she encourages him to go into hiding in her ethnically diverse working-class neighborhood, with relatives and friends of hers, including Luigi (an Italian uncle), Sascha (a Russian restaurant owner), and Pat’s younger sister Mary. Not only are immigration agents coming, but so is Gardner, accompanied by his valet Griggs (Eric Blore). Gardner sends Griggs to Sascha's restaurant in an attempt to win her back. Griggs fails, but also recognizes Bob from his photo in the paper, and soon Bob may not be able to keep hidden much longer. 

This mild B-musical is enjoyable enough, though not really anything special, even though a song from it, “It’s a Blue World,” was nominated for a Best Song Oscar. Singer Tony Martin, whom I have not always liked as an actor, acquits himself well enough here, maybe because he's working with Rita Hayworth in one of her last B-leads before she became a full-fledged star in 1941 opposite Fred Astaire in You'll Never Get Rich. Alan Mowbray is his usual stuffy self as Gardner, and Eric Blore is his usual delightful self as Griggs, who at one point says, "Cherchez l'homme" in his plummy, drawn-out way to hint that Gardner should turn Bob into the police. Other good lines: Mowbray turns down an offer of bicarbonate, saying it "interferes with the brandy." Blore on the subject of women: "All I know is what I see in the movies; you know, oomph and all that sort of thing." Also this bit of philosophy from George Tobias as Sascha: "What is life? You’re born, you die." True enough. Pictured are Edith Fellows, Martin (in disguise), and Hayworth. [DVD]