Pretty Good

Fantastic!

An action-packed slog

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

What we have here has been produced on an obviously moderate budget (which even relies on some stock footage), yet worse it comes across as very much a filmed stage play, as evidenced by all the talk in confined sets. True, there are occasional break-outs into the unexpectedly spectacular like the final surprise tap-dance production number. This is the best choreographed of the numbers, though Joel Grey's delightful solo runs it a close second for sheer energy, vitality and cleverness. Joel Grey is a one-man dance team and it is gratifying to see him acquit himself so well in a major part so early in his career. The rest of the players are not quite in his league, though Mr Wesson makes his usual game try. The girls (Kirk, Gibson and Stanley), though over-made up in typical mid-fifties style, are stylishly dressed and differentiate their characters amusingly. Alas, poor old Eddie Bracken has more than his share of the hokey plot to carry. His heart isn't in it. Even his pratfalls seem contrived and anticipated. But Cliff Ferre is especially good despite some obvious wigs. Keating and Baer also contribute their share to the fun. If only there wasn't so much talk. There's even a half-hour near the end where there's so much plot, even the songs don't get a look in. They are a pleasant if unmemorable lot, some of them quite lavishly (if not particularly inventively) staged.Del Ruth's direction is competent enough and other credits are "A". There's quite a lot of added material that's not in the original stage play and film, including the running gag with the hair dye.

I must confess that every time I try to watch this, I just more and more annoyed with it. Warner Brothers did not have the types of musicals that were being made at MGM or even 20th Century Fox, but at least they had stars like Doris Day and Gordon MacRae to star in them. MacRae gets the leading man role here in this remake of 1938's "Boy Meets Girl", but Miss Day was busy elsewhere in 1952 with leading men Ray Bolger and Ronald Reagan getting her. Phyllis Kirk, best known for the T.V. version of "The Thin Man" replaces her here, and while she's an attractive cookie, doesn't have the spark with MacRae that he had with Doris. Toss in Eddie Bracken and Dick Wesson as MacRae's pals, and the result is a musical comedy where the laughs don't come and as the film runs on, the only emotion you begin to feel is annoyance.The basic plot has the three guys as cadets at SMI (Southern Military Institute) where MacRae is secretly married, which is against the rules. There's also the animosity between the three cadets and Lieutenant Cliff Ferre whom they try to humiliate at every turn, even going as far as to put colored dye into his shampoo which results in a very embarrassing situation. A disciplined and obnoxious "by the books" man, he all of a sudden breaks into a tap dance while trying to hide the fact that he's got blue hair just takes the plot into a ridiculous circumstance that would have gotten the cadets not only kicked out of the service, but most likely court-marshaled. A very young Joel Grey does add some amusement as the eager newbie desperately trying to fit in. While Bracken's brand of comedy can get old really fast, he seems tame in comparison to the truly unfunny Wesson who only ever got laughs from me when he appeared in very ugly drag in "Calamity Jane".Musically, this is not really interesting either, and the songs are instantly forgettable. Years ago, a local Los Angeles station used to show all of the 1950's Warner Brothers musicals on a daily basis, so I got a crash course in Doris and Gordon in seeing their big hits, as well as others such as "The Daughter of Rosie O'Grady" and "Three Sailors and a Girl". But when this one came on, I sat there in shock as to how corny it was and how embarrassed I felt siting there watching it. Of course, none of them will ever be considered classics other than the ones which starred Doris, and when you see what was put out at the same time from MGM's Freed unit, you wonder where Warner Brothers' creative head was, especially since they were the studio that re-vitalized the musicals in the 1930's thanks to Busby Berkeley.

It's sad that the classic Broadway and film comedy Brother Rat was turned into such a mediocre musical. With such an assembly of talent this film should have been far better than it was.I believe the main problem with About Face is the musical score. Absolutely nothing memorable comes from the songs written by Peter DeRose and Charles Tobias. Maybe with a better score the film might have been better.Gordon MacRae, Dick Wesson, and Eddie Bracken play the roles that Ronald Reagan, Wayne Morris, and Eddie Albert did in the film version of Brother Rat. The plot is essentially the same about three roommates at a military academy renamed inexplicably State Military Institute. Brother Rat on stage and screen is set at the real Virginia Military Institute. The three cadets get into all kinds of situations, but the main plot line involves Bracken who secretly married and the other two conspire to keep it a secret because the code of the academy says a cadet will be expelled for marrying. That's going to be hard since he married the commandant's daughter without her telling him her real name and relation to Commandant Larry Keating. And Virginia Gibson has something else arriving at the same time that the cadets graduate in June.Two things struck me while watching About Face. First the whole subject of marriage would be dealt with far more severely in a serious vein in the John Ford classic The Long Grey Line a couple of years later. When young Robert Francis marries in that film, he resigns because of the West Point honor code. Apparently they don't have that at SMI, maybe that's the reason the real VMI was changed to the fictional SMI.Secondly these cadets act like the police rookies in police academy. I swear the things that the cadets do to some of the authority figures were like what Steve Guttenberg was doing in the Police Academy films. I doubt their hijinks would go over at a real military school.One bright thing about it was the debut of Joel Grey on the big screen playing the hapless freshman that the three upper classmen delight in tormenting. Just part of the hazing in these places. And lucky for Grey he had one musical number where he got to display his singing, dancing and mimicking talents. He does a really great impression of Jerry Lewis. Grey plays the role previously done by Ezra Stone on stage and William Tracy on screen and he's really great in the part.About Face could have and should have been better with the talent that went into this film.

I love this movie. It has everything a musical/comedy needs. After all these years I can still hear the songs and see the cast singing and playing the instruments. Joel Gray looks like a young boy in this movie. It might even have been his first role in a movie. As a child I watched this movie over and over again on the Million Dollar Movie in New York. They would play the movie all day long over and over again for a full week. I never got tired of it!