Disappointment for a huge fan!

A Disappointing Continuation

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

When the screenwriter got ahold of the book of the smash hit 1930 Broadway musical, they didn't just take scissors to it. They demolished it with a weed whacker. Gone other than the basic story of a city slicker deemed as "girl crazy" who is sent out to find manhood in the wild, wild west is the bulk of George and Ira Gershwin's unforgettable score. What remains is a mixed bag of typical old vaudeville gags as evidenced by the casting of Wheeler and Woolsey in the top-billed roles.Wheeler is a rather dim-witted Chicago cab driver hired by Woolsey to drive him to Arizona (!) so he can work the crap tables and his wife (Kitty Kelly) can sing at the dude ranch club opened by their city slicker pal (Eddie Quillan). Wheeler is convinced to run for sheriff, but grizzled Stanley Fields threatens to shoot anybody who gets into the sheriff's office other than him. Romance follows for Quillan who takes up with a postal delivery girl (Arline Judge), and Wheeler finds romance with pretty Dorothy Lee. But with Fields out to shoot Wheeler and Judge being romance by a lecherous New Yorker (Brooks Benedict), their chances of getting together seem unlikely.Kelly, no relation to the infamous author of some tell-all autobiographies of Sinatra, Taylor, the Reagans and the Bushes, gets to sing Ethel Merman's star-making song, "I Got Rhythm", and does a decent job with it. The musical number is highlighted by some comical effects, including dancing cactus, a moosehead on the wall which sways, and a bartender (silent comic Monte Collins) whose hair skids back and forth to the rhythm. "Bidin' My Time" sets up the story of all the previously slain sheriffs by showing the local graveyard and a new tombstone being put in. "Never made it to office", the stone says, making you wonder which sap will be next. "But Not For Me" is embarrassingly performed by Mitzi Green (as Wheeler's pesky sister who won't stop demanding that somebody listen to her imitations), Quillan and Judge, and reprised by Green doing mimics of Crosby, stutterer Roscoe Ates, monocled George Arliss, and most hysterically, nose twitching Edna May Oliver. A little bit of that goes a very long way.This seems almost like an after thought, rushed together to capitalize on the show's success and to give Wheeler and Woolsey a vehicle exploiting their talents. It seems lame when compared with the Mickey/Judy MGM version filmed a decade later. That is why Leo the Lion roars at the beginning before the Radio tower begins to beep. On its own, it is acceptable entertainment, with a very funny chase scene between Wheeler and cop Nat Pendleton who is mistaken for a dummy earlier accidentally attached to the back of the cab. The scenes with Wheeler and Woolsey hiding out from Fields are retreads of what they already did in "Rio Rita" and "The Cuckoos", although Woolsey's attempts at hypnotizing Fields are amusing. One of the Mexican senoritas who flirts with the boys is future ingénue Rochelle Hudson. Even though the film is ultimately a mixed bag, it ends on a very funny pre-code note that is the icing on the cake. It's just too bad that the cake is mostly stale.

If you would like a laugh, read through the reviews for this film. A couple of them describe the film like it's a masterpiece--calling it 'a hoot' and another guy gives it a 10. And, conversely, one described it as 'total ineptitude' and another 'dreadfully unfunny'!! Did they make two DIFFERENT versions of Wheeler and Woolsey's "Girl Crazy"?! All I know is that I felt the film was at neither extreme--neither a particularly distinguished film nor a bad one. And, that can be said about most Wheeler and Woolsey efforts.Wheeler and Woolsey leave the big city in search of adventure in modern day Arizona. Little do they know that the casino they are going to work in is also located in a lawless town where sheriffs rarely last a day on the job! Can these two boobs manage to survive? This film is a hybrid--originally a musical and now infused with comedy. That isn't a great thing, as much of the music was dropped and the play's original huge hit, "I Got Music", is a very poor rendition--with poor sound quality and a sub-par tune from Kitty Kelly (though I DID like seeing the cacti dancing as she sang). As for the comedy, it's decent but not hilarious. In other words, it has its moments but isn't great in the comedy department either. But, by far, the absolutely worst part of the film was young Mitzi Green's impressions. Painfully bad is the best way to describe them. Overall, a very mixed bag.

This movie isn't really that good a version of the 1930 Broadway Gershwin musical, as it leaves the songs aside and is reworked as more of a comedy vehicle for Wheeler and Woolsey. Eddie Quillan and Arline Judge are the flotsam hero and heroine – not really needed, except to murder ‘But Not For Me'. Dorothy Lee is pretty much wasted with little to do (just a couple of scenes and one song with Bert Wheeler – the classic Ella Fitzgerald later made famous, ‘You've Got What Gets Me').The best bits really are the ones that are purely silly: the hypnotism scenes between the boys and the bad guy; the cacti dancing to ‘I Got Rhythm' (oddly sung here as ‘I've Got Rhythm' by sparky Kitty Kelly); Mitzi Green and her imitations (particularly of George Arliss!); little Wheeler elected as sheriff and then chased by the village heavy; and the long-distance taxi ride early in the film with the cardboard cop.So the good news is it is a funny film with lots to enjoy on that front; however this movie doesn't do justice to the stage show; and the photography does most of the cast no favours.Almost everyone involved hated this film – Quillan and Lee didn't see the finished article until several decades later and the songs are dealt with inappropriately. What a pity that the best movie versions of the Gershwin shows (Porgy and Bess; An American in Paris; and of course the remake of Girl Crazy, in 1943) came after George Gershwin died.

Mr. Oliver summed up "Girl Crazy" very well. I found a collecter's copy of this, mostly to catch Mitzi Green's performance. Mitzi, born in 1920, worked in fifteen films before she was thirteen. Mitzi, at least in this film, was completely different than anything before or after her. Not the sweet, loving little girl... not Mitzi. Here she's a 12 year old flapper, with just the right amount of brattyness to be sweet, smarter than anyone else, and with a talent for "imitations" of the popular singers of the epoch. She had only one short tap dance number that didn't really show her talent. And I'll bet her colleagues loved working with her... for once a child actress who isn't a scene stealer!Much to my surprise, I found this practically forgotten film has a score and lyrics by the Gershwin brothers, and one of the funniest casts ever, none of whom I'd ever heard of. I generally avoid comedies like the plague, mostly because the modern ones don't seem to be very funny, but this comedy is fast, non-stop, and really funny, right down to the uncredited walk-ons. The scenes & jokes are clever, instead of stupid.... multi-faceted jokes and intelligent slapstick that never lags. The speed and cleverness of it reminds me of the first few minutes of "Romancing the Stone". Only a few of Mitzi's films are available on video in the classics collectors' market. Her screen time is limited to about 15-20 minutes but, as always, she's worth watching and remembering. The combination of Wheeler & Woolsey, the Gershwin bros. and Mitzi Green make this a film well worth seeing.