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:
A Wave, a WAC and a Marine (1944) – Musical #756

Studio:
Monogram Pictures

Director:
Phil Karlson

Starring:
Elyse Knox, Ann Gillis, Sally Eilers, Richard Lane, Marjorie Woodworth, Ramsay Ames, Henny Youngman, Alan Dinehart, Cy Kendall, Aileen Pringle, Jack Mulhall, Mabel Todd, Mel Blanc (uncredited)
Themselves: Charles “Red” Marshall, Billy Mack, Milt Bronson, Elvia Allman, Sid Tomack, Rose Murphy, Freddie Rich, Connie Haines, The Music Maids

Plot:
Talent scout O. Henry Brown (Youngman) confuses two understudies, Marian and Judy (Knox and Gillis), for the stars of the Broadway show “A WAVE, a WAC and a Marine,” Eileen and Betty (Woodworth and Ames). Brown takes Marian and Judy to Hollywood to be signed by Margaret Ames (Eilers) who realizes his mistake and turns the girls down. Marian and Judy have to figure out what to do now that they are stuck in Hollywood.

Trivia:
• Phil Karlson’s directorial feature film debut.
• Working title was “A WAVE, A WAC, AND A SPAR”
• Only film produced by Biltmore Productions, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
• Last film of actor Alan Dinehart, who died that same year on July 18, 1944.
• First feature film of Henny Youngman and Charles “Red” Marshall.

Highlights:
• Musical performances by Connie Haines, Rose Murphy and the Music Maids.

Notable Songs:
• “Time Will Tell” performed by Connie Haines with Freddie Rich and His Orchestra, reprised by Rose Murphy and the Music Maids
• “Gee, I Love My G.I. Joe” performed by Connie Haines with Freddie Rich and His Orchestra
• “Carry On” performed by the chorus

Henny Youngman with Ann Gillis and Elyse Knox

My review:
Before diving in to this review, let me discuss something that I’m often preaching about: access to films, particularly pre-1968 films. There is a general belief these days that everything is streaming. Well, you won’t find A WAVE, A WAC AND A MARINE (1945) on Netflix, Amazon Prime, or even a crumby version uploaded to YouTube. Like so many older films, they are simply inaccessible. Maybe some film print is disintegrating on a shelf in a studio somewhere, forgotten.

Maybe it has been preserved but the studio that owns it is gatekeeping the print—not releasing it on DVD because it’s not financially lucrative but also taking down any version they find bootleg uploaded online (looking at you, Paramount and 20th Century Fox/Disney), or maybe the movie is gone entirely, lost in one of those gut-wrenching studio fires of the past, like the July 9, 1937, fire in Little Ferry, NJ, when 40,000 reels in 20th Century Fox film storage went up in flames. Or it could be tied up in copyright or estate legal issues, like LETTY LYNTON (1932) or PORGY AND BESS (1959).

It’s hard to say, but whatever is keeping viewers away from watching these old films, hence preserving history, is frustrating and heartbreaking.

All of that to say, I ran across A WAVE, A WAC AND A MARINE (1944) and it offered everything I love. A musical set during World War II with a military theme? Sign me up. I searched high and low for this film. Not in any of my usual haunts, no homemade bootleg DVD, obviously not streaming anywhere. It seems A WAVE, A WAC AND A MARINE falls under the “studio sitting on the film” category, as I found a dead link on Prime Video saying that the film is no longer available, leading me to think at one time it was.

But I found a VHS that someone was selling on eBay, and that is how I watched this movie in order to review it today. Wild, right? (Keep your VCR folks, you never know how you are going to find a film to watch. Or send it to me if you don’t want it).

I’ll admit, paying $30 for a 68-minute Monogram Picture VHS seemed ridiculous, but I was desperate to see this film — and continue to illustrate this issue of accessing films.

Now going into the review: So I go to all this trouble to see this film, how was it?

Uh … honestly, in my opinion, not great. This 68-minute film tries to do a whole lot in a short amount of time, and if it had just tried to be one thing, it may have been okay.

The film follows film agent, Henry O. Brown (Henny Youngman) a talent agent for the Margaret Ames Film Agency of Hollywood who is supposed to see the Broadway show “A Wave, A WAC and a Marine” and sign the lead actresses, Eileen and Betty (Marjorie Woodworth, Ramsay Ames). After a too long Taxi ride, Henry misses the show and signs their understudies, Marian and Judy (Elyse Knox and Ann Gillis). Marian and Judy head to Hollywood with Henry and the stage manager, Red (Charles “Red” Martin) along for the ride. But shortly after arriving, it comes out that Marian and Judy aren’t the right young ladies who are supposed to be signed for contracts, and Henry’s talent scout rival, Marty Allen (Richard Lane) arrives in Hollywood with Eileen and Betty, who Margaret Ames (Sally Eilers) signs. Now stuck in Hollywood, Marian and Judy figure out what to do.

Truthfully, if this movie actually focused on the characters played by Elyse Knox and Ann Gillis, I think it would be fun. Unfortunately, it’s too focused on promoting the comedic endeavors of Henny Youngman and Charles “Red” Marshall, who I unfortunately didn’t find amusing at all.

The movie kicks off with a fast talking trio in a cab as Youngman’s character, O. Henry Brown, is trying to get three blocks to see a Broadway show. It was so quick and unfunny that I thought, “What is happening?”

I started the film feeling sad for Marshall’s stage manager character, Red, because the characters of Betty and Eileen treat him like trash. Rather than leaning into sentiment, his character went into the same brand of goofy, unfunny humor of Youngman. Youngman is frankly just too much. There’s a portion of the film where he’s an emcee in a nightclub, giving an announcement, but saying little asides to himself that aren’t funny.

The mean girl-like stars of the Broadway show, played by Marjorie Woodworth and Ramsay Ames, are almost cartoon character-like in their meanness, especially Woodworth who’s acting method in this is shouting.

But so I don’t focus only on the bad, I liked the characters and performances given by Ann Gillis, Elyse Knox and Sally Eilers.

Whle I was hoping the movie was a World War II-themed musical, the title is simply the title of the play featured in the movie. Otherwise, for much of the film, the war tie in is limited. The main theme is that the husband of Elyse Knox is fighting overseas. Something tragic does happen, but rather than building on it in a meaningful way, the moment is sort of brushed aside and we go right back to silliness. It felt like it was an obligatory moment thrown in by screenwriters. It maybe should have been left out, because the way it was handled felt off.

As far as the movie being all over the place, we end a sad telegram scene … and go straight into a zany scene where Judy and Marian are going to be in a film, but they can’t because they are joining the WACs! But let’s start filming them now, get them costumed and hey write a song called “Carry On!” All of this is happening by orders from a producer we hadn’t seen the whole film played by Alan Dinehart. Then suddenly, a voice off camera tells everyone on the screen to be quiet, we have an announcement from the director! And then we see someone filming and it was … Mel Blanc.

Huh? Did they run out of ideas? It just ended in such a zany, silly manner. It gave the whole movie an all over the place feeling.

Director Phil Karlson said the movie was probably the worst movie ever made, but it also started his career. Karlson did have some fun shots where he would shoot the back of someone’s head and they would turn around like a big reveal. I liked when he did this with Sally Eilers’s character.

Now. After I say all that, do I still think it’s worth having access to this movie? Of course!
It’s easy to dismiss movies because they are by a lower budget studio, like Monogram, or aren’t very good, but that doesn’t mean that these films should be shelved and inaccessible. And while it’s a minor film, it’s still important.

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