Pretty Good

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

A short, comic murder mystery at a radio station, with a couple of songs thrown in, presented at a speed that can only be measured in Mach numbers.It's strictly functional. At one point, Frankie Darro, the diminutive hero and page boy, blows a line but just corrects himself and dashes on. Two lady singers are featured, both looking pretty good.The direction, like the acting, is effectively rudimentary. If five people are going to be in the scene, two of them arguing, the five actors are lined up next to one another like troops at attention. The jokes are applied with such blunt force they could be hammering nails.But the movie does have Mantan Moreland at his glorious best. Oh, how un-politically correct it all seems now. Darro dresses up in black face and he and Moreland do an Amos and Andy number trying to get on a radio show. A singing cowboy calls him "Banjo Eyes." The police lieutenant calls every suspect by name except Moreland, who become "the porter there." Moreland, on the other hand, addresses everyone as "Mistuh Frankie" or whatever. Speaking of eyes, his seems to be on springs. They pop out just before he becomes frightened and flees the scene, which is about every other five minutes.What a time of innocence. Except for Moreland, I can't think of many other reasons to bother watching what is a routine B movie about the solution of a murder.

Frankie Darro as a studio page boy and Mantan Moreland as a janitor team up to solve a murder in Up In The Air. Singer Lorna Gray is shot to death during a rehearsal when the lights go out and a gun goes off. It's up to Frankie and Mantan to solve the crime especially since the cops are a pair of thickheaded detectives.I have to say the film does have some funny moments. It also has some offensive ones. Both Darro and Moreland are aspiring radio artists and they've worked up a comedy sketch not unlike the act Moreland did in nightclubs with Ben Carter. But putting Darro in blackface was downright disrespectful. Later on in one of the Charlie Chan films Moreland does do that act with Carter and you should catch it if possible.As it turns out Gray has quite a past and it's her past that's the key to solving her murder and that of Gordon Jones who wants to be a cowboy singer and get on the air.For a Monogram Picture, not bad, but we sure didn't need the blackface.

One movie genre that a normal person might think off-limits to Poverty Row is the musical (because of the extra expense involved with orchestras and singers, not to mention songs and copyright clearances). Yet quite a few musicals made their appearance from time to time along the Row. For this one, Monogram has ingeniously combined the songs and musical capers with a typical murder mystery. And who solves these radio killings that have stumped the keenest minds of the Los Angeles Police (Hollywood Division)? Why none other than dapper, personably brash Frankie Darro and his delightfully hesitant, broom-wielding sidekick, Mantan Moreland (soon to enrich the Charlie Chan series with his smile-a-minute, banjo-eyed presence). Further enjoyment is provided by that really lovely girl, Marjorie Reynolds, as the one-step-into-fame heroine. Her voice is a real treat too. The support players do everything that's expected of them and Mr Bretherton's direction definitely rates a cut or two above the average.

B-movie star Frankie Darro and everyone's favorite bug-eyed comic relief Mantan Moreland made several murder mystery comedies together around 1940 (with some other more-or-less recurring cast members, including Tristram Coffin) for Monogram Pictures. In this one, the guys work at a radio station (Frankie as a bell-boy as usual) when they get mixed up in the murder of the station's popular, but problematic singing star, Rita Wilson (played by Lorna Gray) who is shot during a rehearsal. As usual, the police detective who handles the case is quite arrogant and incompetent, but he ends up working together quite fine with Frankie. And Mantan. Who, while doing his regular scared-of-everything act, is definitely much more than a mandatory comic relief here: he gets top billing, proves again that he is an excellent comedian and also takes part in the detective work quite effectively and in general, his role is more similar to what we usually see from Lou Abbott. So even the people who are extra-sensitive about the racial stereotypes of classic Hollywood are safe with this one. And talking about Abbott and Costello: they actually did their own version of the "murder mystery at the radio station" theme two years later in Who Done It? (1942), while Monogram remade the story in 1945 as There Goes Kelly.Up In The Air has a little bit of everything: mystery, action, comedy, musical and the mixture works pretty well, but as the hour-long entry has several musical numbers, comedy acts and even a dance performance by Mantan, you can imagine how thin the plot is. But it is actually nothing more than a tool to keep the story going and to hold the movie together and at that, it does a pretty fine job and makes this a rather enjoyable little time-passer, complete with car chase, Frankie and Mantan's black face comedy act and a mysterious singing cowboy.