“BEST FOOT FORWARD”

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 193, 13 May 1944, Page 5

“BEST FOOT FORWARD”

Soum- time ago a friend in New York sent me a programme of the hit musical comedy. “Best Foot Forward.” Now that I’ve seen the screen version (at the Majestic) It. seemed worth the trouble to look up the programme and see just how Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had played about with the original script. The original, as far as I could gather, has been reproduced with amazing faithfulness on the screen. (And, after all, if several million New Yorkers liked the stage show, there didn’t seem much necessity to monkey about with the film story.) The impression I got from the cinema was that “Best Foot Forward” was a photographed musical comedy—and none the worse for that.

The film has some really funny dialogue for which it is obviously in debt to the stage show, and it is certainly iu debt for the transplanting of at least two good tunes, “Buckle Down, Winsocki” and "Everytime.” Also, the one important survivor from the original cast, Nancy Walker, is a distinct asset to the screen and a really good comic. Rosemary Lane, who went Hollywood to Broadway

to star in the' original show, has been replaced on the screen (by red-headed Lucille Ball, who has most of the funny lines to say, and says them fine. William Gaxton has the part of the press agent, but he hasn’t enough to do- to make himself felt one way or the other. On the stage the part was played by Marty May who, if I remember aright, was in Wellington with an Ernest Rolls revue a few years back. A certain amount of research has revealed that the stage Winsocki was an ordinary civilian prep school, whereas the film Winsocki is a military academy, the one extravagant departure from the author’s Added to the other good things of “Best Foot Forward” are Harry James and his band and a luscious texture of technlcolonr, a medium which should always -be used, in my opinion, for musical Aims. “HIT THE ICE” To be perfectly candid, I have never been particularly k'een on Bud Abbott and bls partner Lou Costello—that is, till last night, when I. hied me to the St. James to have a look at their latest offering which -bears the somewhat intriguing title of “Hit the Ice." Don’t ask me what it was all about, for I was laughing so much that the story just slipped into the background while the antics of the two comedians kept the entire audience simply shrieking with glee.' The plot actually concerns a bank robbery, two Press photographers who get themselves mixed up with the criminals and an assortment of pretty girls, ice skaters, a swing band and wedding bells. The fun runs high from the first few minutes during which Bud—or was it Lon?—steps on to the end of a telescope ladder on a fire engine and suddenly finds himself careering around in mid-air with some crafty flames but a few inches from the seat of his pants! However, he gets safely to terra firma and with his companion goes off to a mountain resort. From then on the lovely snowclad landscape and a huge glaciarium play a large part in the story. To describe the comedy skating scenes would be next door to impossible. There might have been some dialogue in them and there might not — if there was, nobody heard it, for yell after yell of laughter successfully smothered anything that might have been said on the screen. Eventually, to return to the story, the two men outwit the bank robbers and start on an hilarious ski trip back to their mountain headquarters. That trip definitely defies description. Everything that can happen happens, till finally Bud—or was it Lou?—catches one of the robbers and rolls down the mountain side with him, gathering much snow en route, till finally he reaches base in the form of an enormous snowball, which breaks open when it collides with a tree. The comedians have the support of Ginny Sims, a very pretty lass with a flair for catchy numbers, and Elyse Knox, blonde and fetching. Highlight of the show—the “Slap Polka,” -performed on the ice.