Freddie Stewart |
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 |
Verdict: Another amiable Monogram musical. **1/2.
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.
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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.
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