From The American Songbook-Irene Dunne and Douglas Fairbank, Jr.’s “Joy Of Loving” (1938)-A Film Review

  

DVD Review

By Film Critic Emeritus Sam Lowell

Joy Of Loving, starring Irene Dunne, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., 1938 

I am a child of rock and roll, period. I was present at the creation, or close to it of the classic age of rock when Elvis, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee, Bully Holly, Bill Haley and a million other hungry for new music musicians came thundering out of the bland Cold War 1950s night and helped us break out of jail. While I have acquired tastes for other kinds of music like foundation blues and traditional folk I still to this day identify as a child or rock. Which is neither here nor there except in grabbing this film under review The Joy of Loving from Senior Film Critic Sandy Salmon I noticed that the subject matter features a Broadway musical performer which is a very different part of the American Songbook that what has moved me musically over the years.

Of course the minute I (and some of my old-time high school friends) touch on the subject of musicals then I automatically think about the late Pete Markin who while also a child of rock and roll, maybe the child of rock and roll amongst the old crowd he was crazy for musicals, for the Cole Porter/Gershwins/Rodgers and Hammerstein and here Jerome Kern/Dorothy Fields segment of the American Songbook. Knew most of the lyric from the old shows that filtered into the popular culture by heart once he had seen the film version of Camelot back in the early 1960s and drove us crazy singing the title son and If Ever I Would Leave You until we almost ran him out of town. Broadway musical lyrics were not what drove a bunch of poor boy working-class corner boy kids to anything but serious doubts about a person’s, about Markin’s masculinity. Pete would have had a field day with reviewing this film and I wonder if he might have seen it back then at Mr. Cadger’s old long gone to condos Strand Theater where he would periodically do what are now called retrospectives of the old black and white films rather than first runs to cut down on expenses.

But so much for old touches. Let’s get to a look at what goes on here in this little sidebar musical about musicals. As usual in such vehicles the plotline is pretty thin, if existent. (The person I viewed it with kept asking me what the plot was, when it was going to develop.) Margaret, the role played by Irene Dunne, is a Broadway musical star who is apparently the greedy sole support of her entire extended stage-bound family (including a sister with two kids and a lightweight husband played by a young pre-I Love Lucy Lucille Ball). Despite making a ton of dough she is always behind due to said sponges and that has left her distraught despite her successes. Still her rags-to-riches success has made adamant about taking care of her kin.              

Enter one Dan, played by handsome Johnny Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. who one theater performance night tries to get to see her among the throngs. She thinking him a “masher” (quaint term) calls the coppers. Score one for Margaret. But Dan is smitten so he takes another stab at it on another night. Again thwarted but this time Margaret gets him in court and winds up as his “probation officer.” Naturally as such things go along the way Margaret’s interest in the lug (who turns out to the scion of a wealthy family) grows as she gets to know him. Know him and his idea that she should enjoy herself and dump that spongy family. The long and short of it is they get married but have tiff over that family business. Not to worry while Dan is heading to the great China seas, or claims to be, our girl sees the light and gives the family the old heave-ho. Thus the big number Kern/Fields song You Couldn’t Be Cuter is very apt for this little film.  Yeah Markin would have had a field day with this one.