Two Tickets To Broadway (1951)

A girl (Janet Leigh) from a small town heads to New York to become an actress on Broadway. She becomes part of an act headed by a singer (the leaden Tony Martin) with three other girls (Ann Miller, Gloria DeHaven, Barbara Lawrence) but their manager (Eddie Bracken at his most irritating) is shady, making them promises he can't keep. This uninspired backstage Technicolor musical doesn't have much to offer. The songs (with the exception of Rodgers & Hart's Manhattan) are a dull lot and what's a musical without good songs? Busby Berkeley did the choreography and his two production numbers are the most enjoyable pieces in the film. The Worry Bird number allows Miller to show off her rat a tat tat tapping moves and the politically incorrect Big Chief Hole In The Ground is a bouncy swing piece. Howard Hughes "presents" and James V. Kern directed. With a weird French acrobatic trapeze dance act called The Charlivels, Bob Crosby (Bing's brother and much more appealing) and an annoying vaudeville act, Joe Smith and Charles Dale (reputedly Neil Simon based his THE SUNSHINE BOYS on them) as Yiddish delicatessen owners, Joan Shawlee and Joi Lansing. Supposedly among the showgirls are Vera Miles and Mamie Van Doren but I didn't spot them.