Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938)

In the San Francisco of the 1910's, a musician (Tyrone Power) whose aunt (Helen Westley) has plans for a concert hall career for him has plans of his own. He prefers jazz to classical music and forms his own jazz band. The band is a local success but when his band singer (Alice Faye), who's also his girl, gets an offer to headline on Broadway all by herself ... things start to go wrong for him. Perhaps the prototypical 30's Fox musical, the film has a terrific batch of Irving Berlin tunes, every one a winner so you can't go wrong there. The plot is the usual hackneyed stuff that you know exactly where it's going. Faye is appealing at her most brassy Harlow self but she loses her charm quickly when she starts to get refined and ladylike. Fortunately, Ethel Merman (who knew she had such great gams?) perks things up when she enters the picture. Pretty lively in the beginning but it begins to sag terribly around the middle section, coming back to life only when another Berlin tune gets sung. Directed by Walter Lang. With Don Ameche, Jack Haley (THE WIZARD OF OZ), Jean Hersholt and John Carradine, who's so creepy as a taxi driver that when he takes Alice Faye for a ride through Central Park, you think he's going to murder her!