Hollywood Canteen
Directed by Delmer Daves
Written by Delmer Daves
1944/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing/Homefront Collection DVD
[box] [after unintentionally scaring away a marine sergeant] Peter Lorre: [sadly] All I wanted to ask him is to join me in a cigarette!
Sydney Greenstreet: He didn’t trust us, Peter.
Peter Lorre: No… and we are such gentle people![/box]
Another wartime variety musical brought to us by the same folks at Warner Brothers that gave us Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943). A good opportunity to see a vast collection of the studio’s talent in one place but not one of the stronger of these things.
The wholesome, patriotic framing story and its dialogue could have come out of MGM. Cpl. Slim Green (Robert Hutton) hadn’t received a letter from his girl in weeks and had been dreaming of Joan Leslie at his outpost on New Guinea. Now he and Sgt. Noland (Dane Clark) have finished recuperating from their war wounds and are enjoying a bit of leave in Los Angeles before shipping out again to the front. The Hollywood Canteen gives Slim the opportunity to kiss Joan Leslie as Noland keeps striking out as a lothario. When Slim wins the millionth man contest, part of his prize is a weekend with Leslie and the plot just gets sappier and sappier.
But no one would watch these things for the plot! There are countless cameos by every star in Hollywood including Canteen founders Bette Davis and John Garfield, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, Alan Hale, Ida Lupino and on and on. The music is not too memorable but it does give us a chance to see Joe E. Brown, Jack Benny, Eddie Cantor, Kitty Carlyle and a whole lot more do their thing.
Hollywood Canteen was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of: Best Sound Recording; Best Music, Original Song (“Sweet Dreams Sweetheart”); and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture.
Roy Rogers sings “Don’t Fence Me In” – I had no idea Trigger was quite that talented!
