POT O' GOLD

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 112, 15 August 1941, Page 17

POT O' GOLD

(United Artists)

HEN I saw that Horace Heidt and his Musical Knights were billed as costars with James Stewart and Paulette Goddard in this.

James Roosevelt's first production, I had a feeling that it was going to be Second

Chorus over again-a charge of the Heidt Brigade, so to speak, with Stewart and Goddard as far behind as Divisional H.Q. This assumption proved to be overpessimistic, but for the benefit of perfervid Stewart fans I should point out that Pot o’ Gold is more a musical film than a film with incidental music. That being so, it is inevitable that the band (if Mr. Heidt will permit the abbreviation) gets a good share of the film and the sound-track. However, our inimitable Mr. Stewart surmounts this hurdle very nicely indeed by revealing a hitherto unsuspected virtuosity with the harmonica and (if your musical standards are not too exacting) a pleasant singing voice, As far as James Stewart, the actor, is concerned, the film represents a return from Philadelphia to the realms of whimsy. With that some may disapprove, and I admit that whimsy is in danger of being seriously overdone, but I will also admit to a bias in favour of Stewart and in any case there is never any danger in Pot o’ Gold of the story getting more emphasis than the music. Yet while there is no more story than is needed to link the musical sequences, I enjoyed the production. There is, I suspect, a stale custard-pie in the woodpile somewhere and Mr. Heidt is no actor; but I liked his music, which should have a wider appeal than that of Mr. Artie Shaw. I would like to be complimentary, too, about Paulette Goddard, who dances, chirps a stave or two, and looks decorative, but somehow does not seem to fit into this kind of production: I prefer her myself in something a little more serious,