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Tuesday, March 4, 2025

If I Had My Way (1940)

After his best friend (Donald Woods) dies in a tragic accident, a construction worker (Bing Crosby) takes his friend's daughter (Gloria Jean) to New York City to live with relatives. However, the snobbish brother (Allyn Joslyn) and his wife (Claire Dodd) want nothing to do with the orphaned niece. Directed by David Butler (PRINCESS AND THE PIRATE). Ugh! Sappy musical has a storyline that seems retreaded from countless other sentimental movies about orphaned kids taken under the wing of a friendly adult when nobody else wants them. Gloria Jean was Universal's other juvenile soprano after (way after) Deanna Durbin. She's innocuous enough but I found her singing voice unpleasant. The movie is crammed with old vaudeville stars doing their thing (including a blackface minstrel number). Since there's no leading lady other than Gloria Jean, we're spared a romantic subplot. With Charles Winninger, Moroni Olsen, Verna Felton, Blanche Ring and the insufferable comic El Brendel doing his trademark Swedish dialect.

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