Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

Thank Your Lucky Stars Blu-ray Movie Review

Too Many Cantors

Reviewed by Michael Reuben May 20, 2015

Thank Your Lucky Stars (or "TYLS") isn't quite a musical. It's more like a variety show on film that Warner Brothers released in 1943 to support the American military battling the Japanese forces in the Pacific. The studio devoted the profits, and the stars their salaries, to the Hollywood Canteen, a club founded by Bette Davis and John Garfield where military personnel en route to their assignments danced with celebrities, were served by movie stars and enjoyed first-rate live performances, all for free. (The institution was itself the subject of another WB film the following year entitled, appropriately, Hollywood Canteen.)

In a time-honored tradition, Hollywood put on a show to raise money for the troops by telling a story about the trials and tribulations of putting on a show to raise money for the troops. Self-reflexive cinema has been a Tinseltown tradition since the silent era, when Buster Keaton's projectionist walked into the screen and joined the action in Sherlock, Jr. In TYLS, self-mockery is the order of the day, as beloved stars satirize their own screen images and risk embarrassment by appearing in song-and-dance numbers. Some have to be dubbed, but others acquit themselves so capably that it's a shame they didn't try again. With former newspaper columnist Mark Hellinger (The Killers) producing and director David Butler (Calamity Jane) wrangling the parade of stars, TYLS is overstuffed, overlong and exhausting, but it has scenes unlike any other film. It's a unique artifact of both cinematic and American history, which makes it an ideal entry for the Warner Archive Collection.

Director David Butler, producer Mark Hellinger and star Eddie Cantor (as Joe Simpson).

Five writers labored to create the plot, such as it is, for TYLS. The "A" storyline involves the struggles of two producers, Farnsworth (Edward Everett Horton) and Schlenna (S.Z. Sakall, best known as the bartender, Carl, in Casablanca), to assemble a charity benefit, the Cavalcade of Stars, to support the war effort. One star they particularly want is singer Dinah Shore (making her film debut), but she has an exclusive contract with entertainer Eddie Cantor (playing a suspiciously convincing egomaniacal version of himself). The producing partners fear that Cantor won't lend them his protégé without insisting on overseeing their show, at which point they'll lose control. Their fears turn out to be well-founded, as Cantor proceeds to discard Farnsworth's direction and Schlenna's musical arrangements, rewriting and restaging everything on the fly.

For the "B" storyline, we have an adorable couple comprised of two youngsters struggling to break into show business, both of whom have been fleeced by the same crooked agent. Pat Dixon (Joan Leslie, Yankee Doodle Dandy) is an aspiring songwriter, whose clunky lyrics are a running joke. Tommy Randolph (Dennis Morgan, Christmas in Connecticut) is an aspiring singer, who thinks he has a contract with Eddie Cantor, but is quickly disabused of that notion when he goes to see Cantor and is literally thrown out the door. Both Pat and Tommy are adopted by Joe Simpson (Cantor, in a second role), a dramatic actor who can't get a break, because he looks so much like Eddie Cantor that people laugh whenever he opens his mouth. Cantor may have been a big enough star in 1943 that audiences enjoyed seeing him play two roles, but, at least for my taste, there's too much of him in TYLS. By the time we get to the Man in the Iron Mask-style switch between Joe Simpson and the "real" Eddie Cantor, you're about ready to join the Cavalcade producers, Farnsworth and Schlenna, in committing justifiable homicide.

An entertaining side trip occurs when young Tommy shows Pat where he lives in "Gower Gulch". The real Gower Gulch was a district at the intersection of Gower and Hollywood Blvd., so named because many of the independent producers with offices there made Westerns. In the film, however, it's an area of cheap dwellings built out of old movie sets, which allowed the studio to use portions of sets still standing on its soundstages. Among the residents of "Gower Gulch" are Spike Jones and his City Slickers, who would go on to greater fame on TV and radio. In TYLS, they play a comical number called "Hotcha Cornia (Black Eyes)", then accompany Tommy and Pat (with Joan Leslie dubbed by Sally Sweetland) in a duet called "Riding for a Fall".

The "A" and "B" plots supply the comedy sketches, while the rehearsals for the Cavalcade (and, ultimately, its performance) provide the musical numbers, many of which are by Frank Loesser and Arthur Schwartz. The best known is probably Bette Davis' memorable rendition of "They're Either Too Young, or Too Old", which later became a hit for singer Kitty Kallen with the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra. In TYLS, Davis brings her trademark world-weariness to the song's lament that, in the absence of her military sweetheart, the only available men are either teenagers or octogenarians. Ann Sheridan makes the otherwise innocent-sounding lyrics of "Love Isn't Born (It's Made)" seem positively salacious; Errol Flynn parodies his own screen image with "That's What You Jolly Well Get"; and Oscar winner Hattie McDaniel (Gone with the Wind) infuses the ensemble number "Ice Cold Katy" with energy. Despite his prominent billing, Humphrey Bogart does not sing but appears in a short scene with his Casablanca co-star, S.Z. Sakall, that has to be seen to be believed.

By the time the Cavalcade ends, many more stars have appeared, Dinah Shore has sung repeatedly, just as Farnsworth and Schlenna wanted, and Jack Warner has offered Tommy a contract (a real one this time). As everyone gathers on stage for the final medley, it's a happy ending for all, except for Eddie Cantor, who is still on the run. And, of course, there's also that pesky war overseas.

Thank Your Lucky Stars Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The lustrous black-and-white photography for Thank Your Lucky Stars was the work of Arthur Edeson, who career began with the early silents of Hollywood and whose resume is studded with classics, including Frankenstein, The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca. The Warner Archive Collection adds another to its list of superb B&W classics with this 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray that features deep blacks, finely delineated shades of gray, excellent contrast and a naturally rendered grain pattern that reproduces fine detail for all the elaborate sets and costumes of the various musical numbers, as well as the peculiarities of "Gower Gulch". The superiority of both the original photography and the Blu-ray rendition is repeatedly demonstrated in the large production numbers, where the lighting and camera angles keep attention focused on the star, but everything else is sharp and detailed. The occasional process shots and opticals (e.g., when Joe Simpson is giving a bus tour of stars' home) do not fare as well, but that is a limitation of the original material.

WAC seems to have set 35 Mbps as their target average bitrate, and TYLS comes in just slightly under at 34.99 Mbps. This is ample bandwidth for the reproduction of a film-like image, and WAC has used it well.

Thank Your Lucky Stars Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The film's original mono soundtrack has been encoded as lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0, with identical left and right channels. The source is clean and free from distortion, and, within the limits of the era's technology, the sound is impressive. Both dialogue and lyrics are clear, and the various orchestras sound good enough to make the musical numbers a pleasant listening experience.

Thank Your Lucky Stars Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Warner previously released TYLS on DVD as part of the Homefront Collection in 2008. The extras have been ported over from that disc, with the addition of another cartoon.

• Falling Hare (1080p; 1.37:1; 8:28): Bugs Bunny vs. a gremlin.



• Little Red Riding Rabbit (1080p; 1.37:1; 7:03): Bugs vs. the wolf.



• Food and Magic (1080p; 1.37:1; 9:23): A wartime public service short urging viewers not to waste food and to eat wisely.



• Three Cheers for the Girls (480i; 1.37:1; 16:24): A musical tribute to the chorus women of the movies.



• The United States Army Band (480i; 1.37:1; 8:40): The band plays a military medley set to training footage and the band in performance.



• Vintage Newsreel (silent) (480i; 1.37:1; 2:59): This newsreel features the Hollywood Canteen.



• Thank Your Lucky Stars (Trailer) (480i; 1.37:1; 2:15): "A Million Shows in One, and the One Show in a Million!"



• Watch on the Rhine (Trailer) (480i; 1.37:1; 2:13).



• The Screen Guild Theater Radio Broadcast (29:32): Broadcast on Sept. 27, 1943, this radio presentation of "musical highlights" from TYLS featured Cantor, Shore and Morgan.

Thank Your Lucky Stars Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

TYLS is a one-of-a-kind experience, and I imagine that anyone who already knows the film has parts they love and others they'd just as soon skip. WAC never provides chapter listings, but the minimalist menu does have a song list, which aids in skipping to one's favorite parts of the film. More than most movie musicals, TYLS is suited to programming your own medley of your favorite performances, but if you're new to the experience, watch it all the way through at least once. It really is like stepping back in time. Highly recommended.