HAL WALKER

Bil’s rating (out of 5):  BB.5. 

USA, 1945.  B.G. DeSylva Productions Inc..  Screenplay by Buddy G. DeSylva, Jack McGowan.  Cinematography by Charles Lang.  Produced by Buddy G. DeSylva.  Music by Robert Emmett Dolan.  Production Design by Hans Dreier, A. Earl Hedrick.  Costume Design by Edith Head.  Film Editing by Gladys Carley.

Betty Hutton is adorable as a coat check girl at the titular nightclub, who rescues an old man (Barry Fitzgerald) from drowning thinking him a poor lost soul. What she doesn’t know is that he is a millionaire who, touched by the girl’s concern, becomes her anonymous benefactor and sets her up in a swanky apartment. When her soldier boyfriend comes home from World War II, he thinks she’s been stepping out on him with a sugar daddy, so Fitzgerald’s task now becomes to reunite the couple he has accidentally split up. The fact that Hutton is an aspiring singer and her boyfriend a band leader also means that we’ll have plenty of excuses for musical numbers, which given her workplace will be even more convenient for the plot’s aims of getting them to their success by the finish, but despite such a delightful combination of elements, why is this such a chore to sit through? The charms of the cast and the handful of peppy tunes don’t seem to have enough power to overcome leaden direction; this one doesn’t have to be a classic, but it also doesn’t effectively help pass the time.