bkoganbing Too Many Girls offers the viewer and opportunity to see George Abbott direct one of his own hits from Broadway for the big screen. If the film does have a problem is that Abbott did it too much like a photographed stage play. When Abbott got to recreate Damn Yankees and The Pajama Game for the screen he didn't make that mistake with them. This film plays a whole lot like early musicals such as Rio Rita, The Desert Song, Animal Crackers, and Cocoanuts.On Broadway Too Many Girls ran for 249 performances and coming over from the Broadway production were Eddie Bracken and Desi Arnaz. Playing the leads here are Richard Carlson and Lucille Ball and yes, Lucy and Desi did meet on the set of this film.It's a college musical and in plot and location Too Many Girls plays a lot like the Gershwin Brothers, Girl Crazy. This time it's the woman who is the wild child who goes to the rustic university, in this case it's Pottawatomie College in Stopgap, New Mexico. Lucille Ball plays the Paris Hilton type and she kind of surprises her father Harry Shannon when she says she wants to attend his alma mater. Of course it's a ruse so she can be near her latest flame, Broadway playwright Douglas Walton who has a ranch there.But Shannon is up to her tricks and hires four All-American football players to transfer there and act as bodyguards, the four being Carlson, Arnaz, Bracken, and Hal LeRoy. It takes a great deal of suspension of disbelief to see Bracken and LeRoy as football players.Also on hand are Frances Langford and Ann Miller who contribute their talents to the film. I also don't understand why with a singer like Langford around she wasn't given the lead. Lucy's voice is dubbed by Forties radio singer Trudy Erwin who was a vocalist for a spell on Bing Crosby's radio show.And Ball/Erwin get to do the two main numbers in the film. Most of the score from Too Many Girls came over from Broadway and Rodgers&Hart wrote You're Nearer in addition for this film. You're Nearer and the show's big hit from Broadway I Didn't Know What Time It Was which is a favorite song from Rodgers&Hart for me. Patti Page did a great record of it.Too Many Girls could have had a better screen adaption, but it still remains a gem from what was the height of the collaboration of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart.

texmuscle My mother and father were often on the set of Too Many Girls before they got married. My father was a dancer/extra on the film, as was Van Johnson, who he was buddies with at the time. My mother, who was working in Los Angeles at the time, would go to the set just to watch.My parents often told the story of how my mother would come visit the set and would sit with Lucille Ball and chat with her on the sidelines when she was not being filmed.Once, it came time for a new scene and George Abbott yelled for everyone to get on the set. When my mother remained seated at a table he turned around and yelled at her when he said everybody, he meant everybody! My father had to step out of the chorus line and explain she was his girlfriend and just there to watch. I've not yet gotten the DVD but hope to soon.

aimless-46 RKO filed for bankruptcy in the mid-1930's and was on the verge of finally getting back on their feet financially by 1940. I suspect that someone from their cost accounting group wandered into the studio commissary in 1939 and found it full of under-contract actors and production staff goofing off and eating studio food. They rounded up this group, stuffed the whole bunch onto an unused sound stage (with a leftover southwestern set) and got them singing and dancing to songs from a Rogers and Hart Broadway show (which they had an option on but had deemed unworthy of feature film treatment). The result was released as "Too Many Girls" (1940), financially practical because with almost everything already paid for (insert fixed cost here), the additional expense of actually producing something boiled down to a little electricity and some black and white film stock. No good reason to track this one down, it's pretty witless as a comedy-with the miscasting making for funnier moments than anything else in the film. Everyone except Ann Miller is too old to be playing college students and they try to pass Hal Le Roy (one of Hollywood's most effeminate actors) off as a college football All-American. I generally like this kind of stuff and will sit through anything to watch Ann Miller; so if it totally turned me off it is unlikely to appeal to most viewers. Mostly it is notable for what happened off camera as Lucy and Desi made their first connection. Some of the musical numbers by Rodgers and Hart were bearable; "Heroes in the Fall" and "Pottawatomie". Trudy Erwin dubs Lucy's only song. Francis Langford does most of the other numbers. Mildly wild heiress Connie Casey (Lucille Ball) returns from finishing school in Europe with an unusual request to attend her father's alma mater in New Mexico-Pottawatomie College. "You mean a lot to me, Pottawatomie. You hit the spot of me, Pottawatomie. I love Pottawatomie with all my anatomy. So every tot of me, that is begot of me, will go to Pot, Pot, Pottawatomie". Lucy was almost 30 at the time and even with "extreme" soft focus and minimal close-ups can't remotely pass for 18. Her father suspects that she has a boyfriend at the school and hires four Ivy League football stars to monitor the behavior of the new freshman. The four eventually end up playing for the school's hapless football team, which in a matter of a few days has changed its schedule to include games with big time programs like Nebraska, Columbia and Tennessee. There is a grand celebration at which the student body sings the following less-than-immortal lyrics: "You're a ham-better scram-Notre Dame, We'll make Williams wail, Army-you too Navy, Boo Hoo to Purdue, Georgia Tech day you'll dread-you're a wreck, Look at Brown turn blue, We'll make a bumpia out of Columbia, In a quota Minnesota's got to go, You'll see U of D, We'll have all the alphabet to shout out." (reviewers note: the U of D is the University of Detroit which was once a football power). The scale of this thing is ultimately its undoing as Broadway ensembles of 15 are replaced with a cast of hundreds (remember all those people sitting in the RKO commissary drawing paychecks for doing nothing). On risqué Broadway the girls who are still virgins wear beanies; in the film they wear them to signify that they have never been kissed (it is amusing to watch these aging and jaded RKO starlets trying to pass for ultra-chaste teens). There is a corny and unconvincing romance between Lucy and Richard Carlson; whose brand of wooden acting would eventually work to his advantage in 1950's science fiction films like "It Came From Outer Space". Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

Terrell-4 Too Many Girls is a charming, light-weight and vapid college musical based on the Broadway show by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. What it has going for it is a fine Rodgers & Hart score, enthusiastic and talented actors (several of whom, such as Eddie Bracken, Desi Arnaz, Hal LeRoy and Van Johnson, were re-creating their Broadway roles), a couple of first-rate production numbers and a nostalgic look at a long-ago time when co-eds wore beanies and college football was played just for the fun of it. Connie Casey (Lucille Ball), the head-strong daughter of a rich industrialist who has been trying to keep her out of trouble, decides she wants to go to Pottawatomie University, her father's alma mater, in Stop Gap, New Mexico. Dad agrees, but secretly hires four college football stars as bodyguards. "Kelly," he says to one of them, "would you like a job? Good pay, long hours, hard work. You're not afraid of that, I suppose?" "Oh, no, sir," Clint says. "Good pay never frightened me any." Connie, unknown to her Dad, has fallen for a famous British author who has a ranch near Stop Gap. The four new bodyguards are Clint Kelly (Richard Carlson), Jojo Jordan (Eddie Bracken), Al Terwilliger (Hal LeRoy) and Manuelito Lynch (Desi Arnaz). Once everyone is enrolled, things do not go smoothly. There are lovely co-eds to distract our bodyguards (the ratio of male to female at Pottawatomie is 1 to 10). There is the football team that desperately needs help if it is ever to win a game. There are all those creaking jokes. When Jojo is surrounded by cute and adoring Pottawatomie co-eds one day, he's asked if he'd ever dated any of those eastern girls. "Oh, I went with a senior at Wellesley," Jojo tells them. "They're all air-conditioned." "What do you mean, air-conditioned?" "Forty degrees cooler in the house than on the street." Mainly, there is Connie to be kept from her paramour, which is both made easier and more difficult when Clint falls for her, Connie reciprocates and then finds out he was sent to keep an eye on her. Well, Connie is hurt and angry. She decides to leave Pottawatomie on the night train going back east...and her football-playing bodyguards must go with her. But wait. There's a crucial game the next day. Without Clint, Jojo, Al and Manuelito there's no hope that Pottawatomie can win. Only if Connie realizes how much she loves Clint and relents can our boys play. I know you're in suspense over what Connie decides, but I don't believe in spoilers. You'll have to watch the movie. The primary reason to see the movie is the Rodgers & Hart score. This was the only film version of a Thirties Rodgers & Hart production that even remotely resembled the Broadway original. The score has one classic, "I Didn't Know What Time It Was," and one near classic written specifically for the movie, "You're Nearer." Since this is a college movie, Rodgers & Hart came up with some real rousers; pep songs before a game and victory songs after: "'Cause We Got Cake," "Spic and Spanish" and "Look Out." The climax is a near hallucinogenic production number that features a bonfire, pulsing rhythm, flickering shadows and Desi Arnaz sweating and beating a bongo drum while he struts amidst the cheering throng. Rodgers & Hart also came up with a lovely, gentle gem of a song, "Love Never Went to College," that demonstrates why Hart was one of the best in the business. Lucille Ball is a knock-out. Richard Carlson is stalwart and a bit wooden. This was Eddie Bracken's first movie and he's great...especially when he sings his version of "I Didn't Know What Time It Was." Hal LeRoy, like Bracken, is around to provide comic relief. He was a gifted and distinctive dancer. He has one tap segment in the Spic and Spanish number which is extraordinary. He's not only fast, but his knees seem to be double-jointed. Desi Arnaz makes a funny and endearing impression as the guy who is always ready for a game or a dame. Frances Langford, long forgotten by most nowadays, was a pop singer of style and great popularity during the Forties. She does a fine job as the student body president. She does an even finer job singing some of the songs. Ann Miller is there to do her machine-gun taps and precision twirls. And although Van Johnson is unbilled (he's listed on IMDb as Chorus Boy Nr. 41), his one line is vital to Pottawatomie and to the movie. "We won the game, so help me!"