ZIS BOOM BAH

Jan Wiley, Peter Lind Hayes, Mary Healy

ZIS BOOM BAH (1941). Director: William Nigh.

Vaudeville star Grace Hayes, playing herself, has apparently endowed a college where her son, Peter Kendricks (Peter Lind Hayes, the real son of Grace Hayes) is a student. For reasons never satisfactory explained Peter doesn't know who his mother is, only that she's an entertainer. Grace is very disappointed in her son as she finds him to be egotistical and irresponsible. Although Annabella (Jan Wiley of Dick Tracy vs. Crime Inc.) has set her cap for Peter, the latter is attracted to Grace's assistant, Mary Healey (also playing herself -- she and Hayes had tied the knot the previous year). Grace buys a soda shoppe, converts it to a nightclub, and importunes the students to put on a show so that they can keep the college from going under. 

Grace Hayes with son and daughter-in-law

I didn't hold out high hopes for Zis Boom Bah, but the flick is entertaining and well-played. Both Hayes and wife Healey have very nice voices and deliver their songs with aplomb. The songs are tuneful: Put Your Trust in the Moon; Miss America; Annabella; I've Got to Smile Again. There's also a smooth trumpet player; a very talented kid dancer (Roland Dupree); and the inimitable Huntz Hall [Blonde Dynamite], who dances in drag with Hayes at one point and is a riot. Hayes does great impressions of Charles Boyer and Ronald Colman. Grace Hayes is pretty much forgotten today -- not to mention Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy -- but she is quite snappy and appealing in this picture. William Nigh also directed A Bride for Henry. 

Verdict: This family affair is more fun than you would imagine. ***. 

BLONDE DYNAMITE

Gabriel Dell and Adele Jergens

BLONDE DYNAMITE (1950). Director: William Beaudine. 

Gabe Moreno (Gabriel Dell) has a job as a messenger in a bank, and also has a new girlfriend named Joan (Adele Jergens). Joan manages to steal $5000 from Gabe and give it to head operator Champ Fallon (Harry Lewis), who tells Gabe that he'll get the money back if he gives them the combination to the safe. While this is going on, Louie Dumbroski (Bernard Gorcey) is importuned to take a vacation, after which Slip Mahoney (Leo Gorcey) opens up an escort service in his Sweet Shoppe which employs Sach (Huntz Hall) and the other Bowery Boys as unlikely dates for lonely ladies. Then Champ hits on the scheme of breaking into the bank by digging through the floor of little Louie's shop. 

Escorts? 

Believe it or not, Blonde Dynamite has some genuine laughs in it as the zany story proceeds. A scene with Sach and Whitey (Billy Benedict) taking two older ladies to the opera is a scream, and there's also a funny sequence when Joan hires all of the boys as  escorts to a party to get them out of the way and plans to give them all a mickey. The screenplay makes good use of the comic talents of Slip and his gang, and Gabriel Dell exudes a certain likable charm of his own. Adele Jergens is saucy and vivid as usual as the bad girl who drives the action. Handsome Harry Lewis did mostly television work in the fifties and afterwards and offers a smooth performance in this. 

Verdict: Cute Bowery Boys picture with spirited players. ***.