It’s no secret that the Hollywood Comet loves musicals.
In 2010, I revealed I had seen 400 movie musicals over the course of eight years. Now that number is over 600. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is my weekly feature about musicals.

This week’s musical:
Tea for Two (1950) – Musical #171

Studio:
Warner Bros.

Director:
David Butler

Starring:
Doris Day, Gordon MacRae, Gene Nelson, Eve Arden, Billy De Wolfe, S.Z. Sakall, Bill Goodwin, Patrice Wymore, Virginia Gibson, Elinor Donahue (uncredited), Carol Haney (uncredited), Dee Turnell (uncredited), John Wilder (uncredited)

Plot:
Told in the flashback from modern times, we are transported back from the 1950s to the stock market crash of 1929. At the same time Nanette Carter (Day) agrees to finance a Broadway musical, she has lost everything during the stock market crash. However, she doesn’t know and her financier Uncle J. Maxwell Bloomhaus (Sakall) doesn’t know how to tell her. Instead of telling Nanette she has no money, Uncle Max tells her to say “no” to everything for 48 hours. She believes that if she wins this bet, she can get the $25,000 to finance the show.

Trivia:
• An adaptation of the 1924 Broadway play, “No, No Nannette”
• First of five movies co-starring Doris Day and Gordon MacRae
• Doris Day’s first movie where she received top billing and where she got the opportunity to dance
• First movie of Patrice Wymore and Virginia Gibson
• Dances were choreographed by Gene and Miriam Nelson

Highlights:
• The beautiful Technicolor
• Doris Day and Gene Nelson dancing together with the mirror
• Doris Day and Gordon MacRae
• The Charleston dance number

Notable Songs:
• “Crazy Rhythm” performed by Patrice Wymore
• “I Only Have Eyes for You” performed by Gordon MacRae
• “Tea for Two” performed by Gordon MacRae and Doris Day
• “I Want to Be Happy” performed by Gordon MacRae and Doris Day
• “Do, Do, Do” performed by Doris Day and Gordon MacRae

My review:
The Technicolor! Doris Day and Gordon MacRae together!

While parts of “Tea for Two” (1950) — like the plot of always say “no” — frustrate me, there is something incredibly charming about this film.

I feel like Technicolor Warner Bros. musicals of the early 1950s are often forgotten, especially in comparison to their Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer counterparts. Warner Bros. musicals of this period are vibrant and filled with talent that are overlooked, such as Gene Nelson and Gordon MacRae (to a lesser degree).

“Tea for Two” is the first pairing of my favorite screen team: Doris Day and Gordon MacRae. After this film, the pair appeared in four other films together. Day and MacRae have excellent chemistry, their singing voices blend perfectly, and their youthful happiness is infectious.

Even the often-gruff New York Times critic Bosley Crowther enjoyed the screen duo, though admitting the film was “short on plot”:
“The Warner Brothers financed the whole business (Tea for Two) and if they are interested in rolling up dividends in the future they ought to do something about getting Miss Day and Mr. MacRae together again. These two complement each other like peanut butter and jelly. Their duet of the title song is just wonderful and the same goes for the other tunes that they do singly and in tandem.”

And thank goodness the two were re-teamed in more films!

The film is set in 1929 after the stock market crash. Nanette (Day) is wealthy and ready to invest in a Broadway show. Unbeknownst to her, she has no money, and her Uncle Max (Sakall) hasn’t told her yet. Instead, they set up a complicated bet of saying only “no” for 48 hours in order not to spend money. Saying no sets up complications in her romance with Jimmy Smith (MacRae), saying she doesn’t want to be a lead in a Broadway show, and gets thrown in jail while speeding.

In her autobiography, Day remembered this film as one of the most enjoyable films she ever made:
“It was my first movie with Gordon MacRae and Gene Nelson, two cheerful, amusing men, and with a funny, warmhearted man who was destined to become a close friend, the marvelous comic Billy De Wolfe.”

De Wolfe and Day remained friends, and he called her the nickname “Clara Bixby,” as he didn’t feel Doris Day suited her.

In addition to the charms of Day and MacRae, another underrated talent is Gene Nelson. The dancing in the film is all energetic and exciting, and we have the pleasure of seeing some excellent dances performed by Nelson. He’s another dancer that does some fabulously acrobatic moves, while making them look incredibly easy. I love the dance duets with Nelson and Day, particularly at the start of the film as they dance in the mirror.

This was also the first film that Day had the opportunity to do serious dancing for the first time in years. As a teen, Day originally set out to Hollywood to be a dancer, but was in a serious car accident which broke her leg and ended her dancing career at this point. This was the first time she tap danced since that time. Day wrote that she was nervous about it, but does a beautiful job.

Also in the film: Per usual, Eve Arden is hilarious, S.Z. Sakall is adorable and Billy de Wolfe is annoying.

The retrospective aspect is a fun feature of the film. The film begins in current day with teenagers dancing in an apartment (we don’t yet know who their parents are so we don’t give away our romantic resolution). I thought it was funny that the kids were dancing to “Put ’em in a Box, Tie ’em with a Ribbon (and Throw ’em in the Deep Blue Sea),” a song Day sang in “Romance on the High Seas.”

Before watching this film the other day for this review, I hadn’t seen it since my first viewing in high school. At the time, I was disappointed—I think because the romance between Doris Day and Gordon MacRae is pretty thin. But revisiting it now, I found it more enjoyable with the glittering color and fantastic dancing.

It may be short on plot as Crowther noted, but it isn’t lacking on fun.

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