Lullaby Of Broadway

1950s coy blandness is the death of this musical about a singer/actress (Doris Day) who returns to New York from England to visit her mother (Gladys George), whom she believes to be a star on Broadway. In reality, Mom is a lush but her old colleague, Lefty (Billy De Wolfe), helps to conceal the truth from Melinda.

Although there are plenty of classic Broadway songs in the film they are effectively bowdlerized by the saccharine arrangements and Day's soufflé light stylings. Nowhere is this more apparent than in her rendition of the Harry Warren/ Al Dubin song, You're Getting To Be A Habit With Me. In 42nd Street where it originally appeared (and which is acknowledged with the reference to Pretty Lady, the show which Mr Hubell was supposed to have backed) it was memorable at least partly because is was sung by a character caught in a co-dependent relationship, its lyrics having meaning within the narrative. Here as sung by Day it is just another indistinguishably lightweight pop song. The same fate awaits all the other numbers.

If Day always has a certain preppy charm, her co-star Gene Nelson has a talent for tap-dancing but is more smug than anything else and certainly less than charismatic, the two being a far cry from Rogers and Astaire whose film pairings are an obvious point of comparison. S.Z. Sakall rolls out one of his many demonstrations of his German-American fuddy-duddy as does Florence Bates of her bosomy, busybody wife and only Billy De Wolfe and Anne Triola as the hired help offer anything much in the way of entertainment in what is a tepidly derivative affair.

 

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