ManiakJiggy This is How Movies Should Be Made

MonsterPerfect Good idea lost in the noise

RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Yash Wade Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

dimplet Too Many Girls may have been the best thing to happen to Lucille Ball and Van Johnson. Ball looked at this RKO train wreck and undoubtedly thought, "I could do better." Van Johnson thought, "Gee, am I lucky I only had one line!"Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz (for those born yesterday) went on to found Desilu, which produced "I Love Lucy," as well as the Andy Griffith Show, the Dick Van Dyke Show, I Spy, Mission Impossible, etc., etc. In the ultimate irony, Desilu bought the RKO Pictures movie production properties and facilities, including the famous back lot Forty Acres. They reused the lot for this movie to make Star Trek episodes. And it all started with Too Many Girls. But in Too Many Girls there is nothing to see: The music is lousy, the dancing jerky and exaggerated, the jokes so lame as to be virtually nonexistent, the acting a hodgepodge of monotone and exaggeration, the plot toilet paper thin. Don't believe a musical can be offensively painful? What can you say when "Spic and Spanish" (a dual reference to a floor cleaning product and an offensive term for Hispanic) is the most entertaining song? (ANYTHING is better than "Potawatomine.") There is one enduring classic, "I Didn't Know What Time it Was," which was mutilated by Richard Carlson, and promptly lacerated by Eddie Bracken with his corny repetition. The foundation of the "plot" is that four star football players are hired as body guards (abadoning college at Princeton, Yale and Harvard) to report back to Dad on Lucille's love life. So she is dating an older man (Beverly Waverly) literally under the noses of the body guards, yet there is no report back, no consequences, no development and no explanation of what their relationship is, aside from the fact that he is the real reason she chose to attend Potawatomie. Can those college boys spell "incompetence"?The rest of the story consists of following Ball around, snippets of guys chasing a football, guys chasing girls, and enormous, pointless dance numbers. Hey, anyone find a joke laying around? Oh, right, "Texas Gentile." I think the funniest line was how Potawatomie only beat Columbia by 4 points (Rodgers and Hart were Columbia alumni). Was that before or after the boys joined?I was curious to see Ann Miller and Frances Langford. Langford's acting was forgettably dull, while Miller's was way, way, way over the top in corny artificialness (toward the end someone apparently told Miller she was supposed to be Hispanic, so she adopts a Mexican accent). Ball's acting was adequate for a B movie (this ain't Gone With The Wind); in hindsight, she might have saved the movie with a comedic performance. Desi was the only guy in the movie with any charisma (aside from Van Johnson, who glowed in the dark even as an extra). Harry Shannon, the Dad, turned in a performance so wooden they should have sent for a doctor to check his pulse. Why did RKO make this movie? It wasn't totally unfamiliar with musicals, having made the iconic Top Hat. But RKO wasn't MGM, whose assembly line wizards could turn a telephone book into a musical extravaganza. Someone had departed with the recipe for the secret sauce.This movie had no shortage of talent, it just didn't tap it. Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's long and prolific collaboration was nearing an end, with Hart's death in 1943. Rodgers would team up with Oscar Hammerstein II and produce Oklahoma! in 1943, and write State Fair for the screen in 1945. And you may have heard of their Sound of Music. George Abbott would go on to direct two musicals, Damn Yankees and Pajama Game, that are enjoyable. Either he didn't know what he was doing in 1940 or RKO didn't give him the time and resources. The most remarkable thing about Too Many Girls is that it didn't kill his career. I guess a director doesn't have to go down with the ship.Poster: aimless-46 seems to have hit the nail on the head in his earlier review: RKO had a bunch of actors and staff on salary with nothing to do, plus an option on the Broadway play. Apparently they figured they had nothing to lose, provided they didn't spend too much money. Time to knock out a B musical! What have we got to lose?But if this movie had been a financial and artistic success, RKO might not have sold out to Desilu, Lucille Ball might have continued as a serious actress and not become "Lucy," and Desi might have had a career as a dashing leading man. Instead, "Too Many Girls" became perhaps the most influential bomb in movie history. As Zero Mostel says during a toast in "The Producers": "Here's to failure!"

theowinthrop Rodgers and Hart rarely were served well in the movies. A handful of classic musicals in the middle 1930s (including LOVE ME TONIGHT and HALLELUJAH. I'M A BUM) and an occasional partial success (MISSISSIPPI, abetted by Bing Crosby's voice in two standards), but most of their best work was shelved. The fact was Richard Rodgers would not really be well served in terms of his scores until his partner's last name was Hammerstein. TOO MANY GIRLS is not one of the best scores, but the film version is actually quite good. As pointed out elsewhere the plot is like GIRL CRAZY, but the central figure is a female (Lucille Ball) not a male (Mickey Rooney). The film is the one where Lucy met her future husband and partner Desi Arnaz, but (ironically for what we now know about them), in this film Desi is paired off with Anne Miller, and Lucy with Richard Carlson. The other star (Eddie Bracken) is paired off with Francis Langford. This is one of those musicals for a wet afternoon at home, and it works as entertainment. It has some good moments that are unexpected. Lucy is shipped to this out of the way college in the southwest (for its day it is ahead of its time, as Desi is one of the football stars at the college, and Anne - his girlfriend - is a Native American). The reason she is sent is her too open sex life. Her father wants to end this, and he does by sending her to his alma mater. But her father is played by the old reliable Harry Shannon, here (for a change) a millionaire. He gets a chance to warble the university theme song, which is as asinine as "Boola Boola" is for Yale. Shannon gives it his full pipes and acting, even pounding his breasts while singing the nitwit lyrics (Lorenz Hart must have been enjoying himself when he wrote this - his version of "Grand Old Ivy" in HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING). Regretfully Shannon, after shipping Lucy to the college, never reappears in the film - he really deserved a second silly number.One number from the show was cut from the film - probably wisely. Desi does eventually do his "Babaloo" number in the film, and with real spirit (forming a conga line the others are on). But in the show he had a tune, "Everythin' is Spic and Spanish!". While it would be curious to hear Desi singing it, it did not make the film. As a result the film is still available to be seen by the public. I suspect if the number had been kept in (and why shouldn't it in that simpler, more openly racist period), Latino groups would be demanding it be cut in re-release of the movie. I suspect that Arnaz, a proud Cubano, would probably have also regretted singing such a tune in a released movie after say 1970 or so.The film is also one of the few films directed by Broadway legend George Abbott, who directed the stage version. Abbott also directed the film version of DAMN YANKEES!, again a musical he directed on stage. While both films are good, I notice one tendency by Abbott that is barely controlled because it appears in both films: at some point in his musical numbers he picks up and misuses a close-up. In DAMN YANKEES! one of the songs involves three of the baseball players dancing. This is not annoying, but Abbott suddenly pulls a close-up of one of them, winking at the others (who we cannot see), tipping his cap at an angle and stepping forward to do his soft shoe act. We don't have to see this close up, and Abbott (who probably had done that done by the actor on stage) did not think of that. Here, in a major dance number involving all the student body at the college, he pushes the camera towards a cannon that is pulled 90 degrees to face the camera, and when the camera is about ten feet from the cannon the cannon is fired "into the faces of the audience". Again Abbott probably did that on stage, but it is less than effective in close up in a film. In fact, had he done it from a distance it would have blended in nicely with the dance number.Still those mishaps are few. I don't dwell on the plot (dealing with colleges and football and the girls versus their boyfriends until the final clinches), but it is definitely worth watching once or twice. So I give it an "8" out of "10".

wes-connors Lucille Ball (as Connie) is going to college. Her wealthy father is afraid she'll get into trouble, so he hires four football players to be her bodyguards. Not a very bright man, obviously! The bodyguards are: Desi Arnaz (as Manuelito), Eddie Bracken (as Jojo), Richard Carlson (as Clint), and Hal LeRoy (as Al). Ann Miller and Frances Langford are around to dance and sing.It's a fair musical, with an "Indian" subplot (Huh?), and budget problems. You should know that Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz are not paired up in (on-screen, anyway) this film (Ms. Ball is partnered with Mr. Carlson). This is a routinely presented film, with a few highlights. Unfortunately Mr. Le Roy and Ms. Miller do not have a real dance off/team-up together. Mr. Arnaz steals the show from his future wife with a charming performance - look for the scene where he plays "guess the lipstick"! ***** Too Many Girls (10/8/40) George Abbott ~ Lucille Ball, Richard Carlson, Desi Arnaz, Ann Miller

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!"