The first must-see film of the year.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

In "The Wizard of Oz", Tin Man Jack Haley was searching for his heart, but in this earlier 20th Century Fox musical, he found himself searching for courage, afraid of a big metal box that could have been melted down to make the Tin Man's hat. He's billed way below a bunch of top stars, but really is the lead, a milquetoast radio station page who has a crush on radio singer Alice Faye but goes numb as he tries to face his fears of singing. One day by accident, he tries to get over his fear and sings into what he believes to be a dead microphone but which actually goes live on the air as bandleader Ben Bernie plays. Pretty soon, Bernie's hated rival, Walter Winchell, is forcing Bernie (a real-life bandleader) to come up with what he has named as "the Phantom Crooner", with all but Faye unaware that Haley is singing into what he believes to be just a rehearsal session. That includes Winchell's wise-cracking secretary Patsy Kelly (who happens to be Haley's sister) and Kelly's vinegary voiced boyfriend (grouchy Ned Sparks), providing a lot of laughs and plenty of fun big band late 1930's music.Plenty of insults fly around the room as Winchell and Bernie (the top-billed stars) go at each other-Winchell in his column and Bernie on the air. Like Jack Benny and Fred Allen, theirs is an obviously made up feud, and really, you can't help but realize that they actually worship the quicksand that the other one walks on. Having just played Haley's wife in the college football musical "Pigskin Parade", Kelly is very funny, while future star Joan Davis proves herself to be a very funny girl as she plays a knocked about Spanish dancer (!) in an amusing comedy dance sequence. Haley is actually dubbed by Buddy Clark, but it took some research for me to prove that. Haley had sung in musicals before, but something in his voice was very different, even if the crooner style is obviously not him, the sound is quite similar. "Never in a Million Years" is a very pretty ballad, but was overshadowed by Faye's big solo, "There's a Lull in My Life", a very blues style number that was part of her transition from brassy blonde bombshell to gentle leading lady.A hysterical group of character actors add even more laughs, with Walter Catlett part of the unbelieving Winchell team, and Etienne Girardot (the religious nut from "Twentieth Century" and Edward G. Robinson's miniature imperious boss from "The Whole Town's Talking") very funny as the man sitting next to Haley during a radio show whom Haley incorrectly assumes to be the phantom crooner. Barnett Parker is hysterically funny leading the radio show audience in a chorus where Haley's "phantom crooner" voice is heard in the radio station's office and leads to the confusion concerning Girardot. An above average song score by Mack Revel and Harry Gordon makes this a must for classic movie fans. There will be no time for napping once this comedy gem gets going, so waking up isn't an option.

Wake Up And Live (1937) is the best "feel good" musical movie ever made, and one of the top 10 musical movies of any kind ever made.Somehow, it disappeared, isn't ranked with famous musical movies....but deserves to be.Everything is right with this movie, and about it. The songs, the acting, the singing, the comedy, the machine gun musical numbers fired at the audience one after the other...all winners. Talent, talent, talent to a breathtaking level which ends in such a rousing way, one has no alternative but to cheer."Old movies used to make people feel good"......no movie proves the truth of this oft stated bromide than Wake Up And Live (1937).Walter Winchell got top billing for the movie...higher billing than the actual main characters played by Jack Hailey and Alice Faye.Winchell was wonderful beyond words, and is true proof that movie stars are never made, trained, or created....they were already there when some smart movie producer put a camera in front of them and "let them do their thing."When the movie camera can and does photograph charisma (with or without the help of microphones and sound recording), a movie star is born, and revealed.Walter Winchell was a natural movie star. He acted in vaudeville before he became a journalist celebrity, and was aware from actual experience as a paid performing artist of the problems and dilemmas actors faced. He didn't have to face those problems in the newspaper business. He moved from acting to writing, but always had the natural movie star actor ability we see shine brilliantly in Wake Up And Live (1937).Winchell has such charisma and is such a natural before the camera (he plays himself.....I don't think he ever did another movie, or at least not one like this where he was center stage so often, and wonderful every second of the time), there's no way to say how good he was. You gotta see him in Wake Up And Live (1937).Alice Faye (1915 - 1998), the female lead star of the movie proves color film isn't needed to show of the most incredible and hypnotizing blue eyes ever to appear in cinema at any time. She is so beautiful, and her eyes especially in the movie's abundant close-ups of her wonderful face, the viewer can't help being enchanted.Wake Up And Live (1937) is wonderful for many reasons....the set decoration is packed with art deco night club scenes better than most big Fred Astaire movies.Supporting actors and character actors of fame abound in Wake Up And Live (1937). Walter Catlett, Ned Sparks, William Demarest, Patsy Kelly, and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson....and on and on and on.......The movie (and every main character in it) has style and élan and charm and pizazz to a level seldom, maybe never reached before nor since......it showed the 1930's classy night club scene and brassy characters part of it all at its very best and most compelling.WAKE UP AND LIVE (1937) is a "Walter Winchell Theme Movie," one of several worth seeing.Two "Winchell theme movies" were made in 1932 (OKAY America and also BLESSED EVENT) when Walter Winchell was VERY important in the show biz world. He was a "wordsmith" of renown and enormous talent, and a showman extraordinaire.....his career went non-stop from the 20's until his death in the 70's. He was always thought important, and for good reason.The high quality of the actor cast in OKAY America (1932) shows the investment big shots in Hollywood thought worth making in a movie about Walter Winchell.....Lew Ayres, Maureen O'Sullivan, Louis Callhern, others. Lew Ayres was slower and less charismatic than Walter Winchell or Lee Tracy playing a Winchell type in BLESSED EVENT the same year. Reviewers complain about this, but never forget what an important actor Lew Ayres was in 1932 (he had had just starred in the biggest movie of those times, ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT). Anything Lew Ayres did was and is worth seeing. OKAY America (1932) is "OK!" so ignore the critics and see the movie anyway.This is a quality movie, one of a group all based on the Walter Winchell character and phenomenon.Over movie history, "Walter Winchell" type "theme movies" (the world of gossip column "tell all" newspaper reporters) were made, most of them well done because the subject (Winchell and his dramatic ways) is inherently dynamic, fast moving, and interesting.BLESSED EVENT (1932 starring Lee Tracy appeared the same year as OKAY America (1932), and was based on a Broadway play from 1932 which dealt with "the world of Winchell" (without naming him directly).Winchell himself appeared in WAKE UP AND LIVE (1937 Fox) playing himself "doing his thing" and the movie is wonderful, but also, mysteriously, hard to get, not ranked among the "great" 30's musicals, which it certainly was and is.SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (1957)starring Burt Lancaster was an anti-Winchell movie (Lancaster played Winchell as a villain, while the earlier Winchell movies presented the "Winchell type as sympathetic and positive).However, SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (1957) but clearly a re-affirmation that Winchell was always interesting, always news for decades! Gathering various "Winchell theme movies" is worth doing. These movies are all good! --------------------------

One of Darryl F. Zanuck's peculiar quirks was that he frowned upon his musical stars making records. Unlike Bing Crosby who recorded nearly all the songs he sang in Paramount films and numbers from other Paramount films with the encouragement of Adolph Zukor, Zanuck felt that if the public bought records they wouldn't pay to see his films. Alice Faye did manage to record about 20 sides during the Thirties and the last batch she did was four songs from Wake Up And Live. Good thing to because Mack Gordon and Harry Revel wrote some of their best material for this film.The film itself was based on a make believe radio feud between columnist Walter Winchell and band-leader Ben Bernie who play themselves on screen. Make believe feuds among radio personalities was a common enough thing back in the day, it made for interesting programming and bigger Hooper ratings. The Hooper was the radio equivalent of the Nielsen before television became commercial.Jack Haley and Grace Bradley are a pair of vaudevillians who travel to New York hoping to cash in on the fact that Haley's sister Patsy Kelly is Walter Winchell's assistant. A mention in Winchell's column gets them inundated with offers, but Haley who apparently has no problem performing before a live audience of a hundred or so in a theater, gets paralyzed with fear over speaking and singing into a microphone that will broadcast to millions.But one night when Alice Faye is singing on Ben Bernie's program, Haley is in an empty studio singing into what he thinks is a dead mike. His voice comes over the air and no one knows who it is. Immediately he's dubbed 'The Phantom Troubadour' and the hunt is on to find him. It's a contest between Winchell, Bernie, and a bottom feeding sleaze-bag agent played by Walter Catlett. Of course Faye finds out first and looks to exploit Haley in her own way.It's a nonsensical plot, from an era that spawned this kind of nonsense. Doesn't detract a whit from the fact it's an entertaining film with Alice Faye singing at her very best.But you won't hear the familiar voice of Jack Haley that you know as the Tinman from The Wizard of Oz. Instead Haley's voice in this film is dubbed by one of the great radio crooners of the time, Buddy Clark. Buddy never did too much work before the camera, but on radio he was one of the most popular singers in his era. Sadly he was killed in a plane crash right before the era of television, I'm sure he would have made it big there.Alice and Buddy get to sing the title song, Never In A Million Years and Swell Of You. Alice does There's A Lull In My Life and Buddy sings Ooh, But I'm Happy. Long before I finally got to see Wake Up And Live I had a long playing 33 1/3 vinyl album of Alice Faye with the four songs she sings before Zanuck put an end to her recording career. I knew the songs and loved them. So it was a special treat for me to finally see the film and more so to hear Buddy Clark sing as well even if the words came out of Jack Haley's mouth.I think if you can ever catch Wake Up And Live you will feel as I do about the great singing voice of Buddy Clark.

Walter Winchell started in vaudeville as a performer in Gus Edwards's 'School Days' act. (A fictionalised version of this remarkable troupe became Bing Crosby's movie 'The Star Maker'.) Between engagements, Winchell wrote and published a vaudeville newsletter, filled with showbiz gossip. He eventually became a newspaper/radio columnist, utterly ruthless in his power, quick to destroy an enemy's career and (less frequently) to aid a friend. (The Broadway revue 'Hellzapoppin' was trashed by all the critics, yet ran for more than 3 years because Winchell plugged it in his column every single day.) Although many actors and entertainers desperately coveted a mention in Winchell's column, nearly everyone in show business despised him. (Ed Sullivan once threatened to shove Winchell's head into a toilet.) Winchell wisely avoided feuding with his many enemies, aware that such action would only give them free publicity. One of Winchell's few real friends was popular radio bandleader Ben Bernie, and the two concocted a public 'feud' that was a long-running publicity stunt for them both. Several movies - most notably 'Sweet Smell of Success' and 'Blessed Event' - feature fictional journalists who are blatantly based upon Winchell.'Wake Up and Live', an above-average Fox musical, features Winchell and Bernie playing themselves ... or, rather, fictionalised versions of themselves, designed to make Winchell look good and their phony feud look genuine. In a staged scene, Winchell rattles off his extensive knowledge of obscure nightclub acts while identifying a masked singer after hearing only a few notes. In another scene - equally staged, but funny - a shifty promoter played by Walter Catlett tries to offer Winchell a bribe. Winchell takes the money but immediately drops it into a charity poorbox. Catlett attempts to retrieve the cash, only to attract the interest of a passing policeman. This scene pays tribute to one of Winchell's few genuine redeeming traits: he was active for many charitable causes. (Winchell founded the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund.) It's fascinating to see Winchell onscreen, even though he's clearing playing a sanitised version of himself. To see him here, you'd never guess he bullied his daughter unmercifully and drove his son to suicide.Although Winchell and Bernie are prominently featured, the frothy plotline centres on Jack Haley as a would-be radio vocalist and Alice Faye as the singer who encourages him. The sexy and vivacious Faye sings the bouncy title tune. There's a very funny scene in which Haley arrives at the radio station, hoping to audition, when he runs afoul of a sour-tempered studio usher. The usher is played by none other than William Demarest, in his usual mode. It's astonishing to realise that, as late as 1937, Demarest was still playing bit parts like this one ... still, he's very welcome here in his brief scene. Demarest assures Haley that his audition will go well, providing he doesn't get mike fright ... a phenomenon which he then describes to Haley. So, of course, as soon as Haley tries to sing he develops mike fright. There's a delightfully surrealistic sequence in which we see the microphone from Haley's viewpoint, as it morphs into a snarling demon!There are some lively but irrelevant speciality acts, including a couple of dance routines that would never perform on an actual radio show. Lots of familiar faces in the cast list, and Patsy Kelly is less annoying than usual. The title song is the only good one here. One interesting trivia note: the opening credits of this movie feature two guys from the art department named Mark-Lee Kirk and Haldane Douglas, and their names are stacked onscreen so that 'Kirk' is directly above 'Douglas'. I wonder if a certain dimple-chinned actor, just aspiring to a film career at this point, took his screen name from the credits of this movie? I'll rate 'Wake Up and Live' 9 points out of 10.