Ad Sense

Thursday, February 13, 2020

HIGH SCHOOL HERO

Freddie Stewart
HIGH SCHOOL HERO (1946). Director: Arthur Dreifuss. 

 The third "Teen  Agers" film from Monogram features the old -- and I mean old -- high school gang up to assorted shenanigans at Whitney High amidst singing and dancing. Freddie's (Freddie Stewart) rival Jimmy (Jackie Moran) is now at Fairview High along with his buddy, Roy (Frankie Darro), and Jimmy is still trying to court Dodie (June Preisser). The only thing that will keep the Whitney football team from being trounced by Fairview is by secretly substituting Dodie for Lee (Warren Mills) during the games. When this subterfuge is discovered, the football team resorts to using dance moves to confound their opponents. In another development Freddie has been told that his show for the governor's appearance has been canceled in favor of professional entertainers. Dodie stupidly blames Freddie for this, but he has a plan. He nearly gets in hot water with sexy singer Chi Chi (Lita Baron), and Dodie's sister, Betty (Noel Neill) is on hand to report it all for the school paper. 

Lita Baron as Chi Chi
High School Hero is good-natured nonsense that features a good cast and some nice musical numbers. Freddie Stewart has quite a nice voice as well, and does a fine job crooning the ballad "You're Just What I Crave." Lita Baron scintillates during her nightclub act and has fun trying to vamp the innocent Freddie. Milton Kibbee and Belle Mitchell are back as Professor Townley and Miss Hinklefink, who has a crush on the professor, and Leonard Penn is cast as a psychology professor who ignites the romantic interest of Dodie's other sister, Addie (Anne Rooney). Just when you think the man couldn't possibly appear in yet another movie, Pierre Watkin shows up as the governor!

 Verdict: Another amiable Monogram musical. **1/2. 
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

2 comments:

  1. angelman66February 17, 2020 at 5:44 PM

    Monogram is a studio I need to look into...these 1940s musicals look like fun. These were not on TV when I was a kid and I never read much about them growing up.
    - Chris

    ReplyDelete
  2. WilliamFebruary 17, 2020 at 8:48 PM

    Monogram was one of the "poverty row" studios and it generally employed actors on their way up -- or on their way down. The ones on the way up rarely got very far because Monogram was not a prestigious studio and it was hard to be taken seriously or move on to better things, which is why poor Freddie Stewart never did much more than these cheapies, although he had a fairly successful career as a band singer for Tommy Dorsey and the like. Still some of Monogram's musical and horror items were fun.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)