CAN'T HELP SINGING

US, 1944, 90 minutes, Colour.
Deanna Durban, Ray Collins, Robert Paige, Akim Tamiroff.
Directed by Frank Ryan.

Can't Help Singing is a pleasant but dated musical of the early '40s.

Deanna Durban had made her impact at Universal and appeared in numerous films with great box office success. This is her only colour film. It had a 19th. century setting - Washington and the South as well as the West. There are many colourful scenes with the army in Washington and in western towns as well as pageantry of the wagon trains.

Deanna Durban shows a lively sense of humour. There is eccentric comedy support from Akim Tamiroff and Leonid Kinskey as a pair of Russian exiles who are conmen. Thomas Gomez looks in at the end - as a man with a great reputation who is supposed to be the fiance of the heroine. Ray Collins is her father and Robert Paige is the stolid but pleasant hero.

The film also has the benefit of some Jerome Kern music - especially the title song which is continually played throughout the film.

A pleasant look at the manners of Washington, of the opening up of the goldfields, of the South with the showboat and the various cities that were being opened up in the 19th century. Plus the touch of the West.

(The film might be compared to the tongue-in-cheek colour adventure comedies made at Universal at the time, especially with Yvonne de Carlo: Salome Where She Danced and The Song of Scheherezade.)

The film is a modest musical, Universal-style, rather than that of the lavish colour of the Fox musicals of the time and the beautifully executed M.G.M. musicals.