I had never heard of this film until I saw it on the shelf at my library, but being a huge Kathryn Grayson fan, I was pleased to make its acquaintance.
Kathryn Grayson stars as Abigail Chandler, a young woman who wants to be an opera star. She has left behind her Boston home to study music in New York City, generously aided by her uncle. When the money he sends turns out to be inadequate, she hesitates to ask for more, and instead takes a job singing at The Golden Rooster, a bawdy house of song and dance. When word gets back to Boston that she has been seen performing and showing her limbs, her very proper family nearly combusts. Hopping the next train, they head out to see for themselves if this is true.
Martha, Abigail’s little sister (played by June Allyson) is determined to prove for herself that such a nasty rumor cannot be true. She goes to the Rooster herself, only to find a poster of her sister as the main feature, and she faints clean away on the floor.
Meanwhile, Abigail is going to great lengths to convince her uncle that she’s singing in an opera called The Golden Rooster. Those rumors are just silly; she would never do a thing like that! But when her uncle says he will buy tickets to the opera that night to make sure she’s really performing in it, Abigail knows she’s sunk. She’ll get yanked back to Boston and she’ll never accomplish her dream. But with a whole lot of fancy footwork from her good friend Spike (Jimmy Durante, in his first dancing role) she manages to get on the opera stage and silences her uncle’s doubts.
However – in so doing, she makes an enemy of the male lead, causes embarrassment for the head of the opera board, and ends up making a mess of everything. Only a great act of sacrifice on Martha’s part brings everything together in the end the way it should be.
Also starring Peter Lawford as Martha’s serious-minded, earnest love interest, this movie had a lot of tender moments. It was fun to watch Jimmy Durante pull off his wild stunts and to hear Kathryn sing, although it’s unfortunate that so many lies were told in the process of getting the girls where they wanted to be. And lest you be concerned about the performances at The Golden Rooster, they certainly would have been risqué for the turn of the century when the film was set, but the swimwear pictured went down to the knees and the undergarments went halfway down the thigh. We were given the impression of naughtiness of a bygone era rather than actual naughtiness. I found the film to be quite a bit of fun but have decided that Peter Lawford isn’t much good at slapstick.
A side note: Peter would go on to star opposite June Allyson again in “Little Women,” filmed three years later in 1949. He was much more suited to that role.
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The Circle of Life, Hollywood Style