A tour of Paramounts Studios and the contracted stars of the time. I must admit that the first time I watched "Variety Girl" it was very late at night and after several drinks. I suffered through this film for nearly two hours, and when it was over I said to myself: "Where the hell was Veronica?". I remembered her being in a scene in which she signs some autographs for kids, but was that her only appearance?
I decided that I must have missed more of her while fixing a drink, and decided to try to watch it again just to be sure. Well folks it was a few weeks before I could muster enough courage to sit through this film once more. I had a few glasses of Scotch and bravely pushed the play button. "Variety Girl" is basically another Paramount money maker with a slew of the studio's biggest stars of the day. It is filled with skits and musical numbers just like "Star Spangled Rhythm", but unlike that film it is rather dull and frankly kind of boring.
There are some points of interest. Frank Ferguson, who played the chemist that Raven murders in "This Gun for Hire", has the role of a studio chief who is somehow always getting drenched by upstart Catherine Brown (played by Mary Hatcher). A young DeForest Kelly, who later played "Bones" in Star Trek, appears as talent scout Bob Kirby. There is a real gem of a performance by a young Pearl Bailey. Also, Alan Ladd and Dorothy Lamour team up to do a dramatic scene that turns into a ridiculous song and dance number in which he sings! Bob Hope and Bing Crosby contribute several funny comedy routines as well. However, these sparse contributions are totally lost amid the overbearing singing of Hatcher, and the absolutely atrocious performance of Olga San Juan as the supremely annoying Amber La Vonne.
During the film's final musical sequence I was in agony watching Hatcher, who somehow managed to perform about a hundred pirouettes and hurt my eardrums all at the same time. Where was my Connie Keane? Have no fear. I was still cognisant enough to catch her at the very end. There she was for a total of two seconds dancing next to Alan Ladd during the final roll call of stars. She's wearing a fez and dancing with an Arabian outfit on. Brief but beautiful. Get ready to push the pause button! If you're a hard-core fan who doesn't have anything better to do, or if you don't mind seeing her in such a short, non-speaking role you might want to watch this for yourself. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Author: Randall Dumas (Hartford, Connecticut, USA)They really churned these out; thinly plotted variety shows with a central character and thread to support random skits and songs. As it goes this one has some effort to it with animation and rather ambitious musical numbers.
Lake is highly billed on the posters and even caricatured with the big names in the titles (admittedly towards the end of them) but she is on the screen for mere seconds in a huge black hat, as part of a chorus line in the dying seconds of the flick. Not enough to even register on a casual viewing. She got more screen time in Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid.. :S
Author: Mark R Nash (Wales, UK)