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. ***. 

A BRIDE FOR HENRY

Anne Nagel

A BRIDE FOR HENRY (1937). Director: William Nigh.

Spoiled socialite Sheila Curtis (Anne Nagel of The Secret Code) is furious at being stood up at her wedding by her fiance, Eric (Henry Mollison), so she importunes her lawyer Henry (Warren Hull) to marry her. The plan is for her to eventually file for divorce in Reno, but first she decides to go on a chaste honeymoon with Henry -- and then Eric shows up. Carrying a torch for his own wife, Henry takes up with blond heiress Helen Van Orden (Claudia Dell), leading to mostly unfunny complications. As Eric tries to woo back his angry former fiancee, Henry does his best to make his wife jealous. But whom will our Sheila ultimately wind up with, and will anybody care?

Claudie Dell and Warren Hull

A Bride for Henry is a minor-league would-be screwball comedy from Monogram Pictures, which tells you something right there. It's one of those movies where everyone can tell in the first minute that Sheila should be with the much more appealing Henry, but it takes her nearly an hour to figure it out. The characters are not developed beyond stereotypes, and while there's the occasional stab at a funny line or situation, the picture doesn't have the right pacing or slickness. The acting is of the overly broad, too-cutesy type that generally sinks this kind of fluffy concoction, although Nagel is still very likable and Hull, better-known as a serial hero in such as The Spider and The Green Hornet, is so handsome one can't imagine why Sheila never noticed his charms long before the picture begins. 

Verdict: Nagel and Hull give it the old college try. **1/4.