Watch Stage Door Canteen For Free

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

The acting in this movie is really good.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Copyright 14 June 1943 by Principal Artists Productions. Released through United Artists. Presented by Sol Lesser. A Frank Borzage production. Presented in association with the American Theatre Wing. New York opening at the Capitol: 24 June 1943. U.S. release: 12 May 1943. Australian release: 31 March 1944. 14 reels. 12,034 feet. 134 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Theatre (sic) stars run a canteen for servicemen in New York.NOTES: One of the top money-making films of 1943. (The artists donated their talents. 90% of the proceeds went to the American Theatre Wing.) Nominated for 2 Academy Awards: Best Song ("We Mustn't Say Goodbye" - lost to "You'll Never Know" by Harry Warren and Mack Gordon from Hello, Frisco, Hello); and Best Scoring of a Musical Picture (lost to Ray Heindorf s This Is The Army).COMMENT: Like Thank Your Lucky Stars, Follow the Boys and the rival Hollywood Canteen this is a patriotic, star-studded compendium of various acts, tied together with a framing story. Unfortunately, despite the expertise of sob-master Frank Borzage, the story is an unintentionally ludicrous, not to say puerile thing which modern audiences will also find objectionable by reason of its dated racist-rousing, its fake religiosity and naive moralizing. Yet, despite this all but impossible handicap, the leads manage earnestly sincere performances which keep your eyes - and hearts - involved. It is the "acts" which let us down.Filmed in a flat, pedestrian style, the tone is set in the very opening number - a wearisomely inept monologue in which Edgar Bergen engages in corny repartee with a couple of dummies. Katharine Cornell (in her only film appearance) also turns out to be a tiresome bore (she exchanges Juliet with McCallister's eager Romeo), as - unexpectedly - does Gypsy Rose Lee whose coyly interminable striptease must be the most untantalizing ever presented in a cinema.George Jessel is also guaranteed to bore the wrappings off a mummy, and as for the patriotic platitudinizing by such as Merle Oberon and Katharine Hepburn . . .Harpo Marx's long-awaited appearance is both brief and insignificant, being easily upstaged by an amusing (if equally brief) sketch by Johnny Weissmuller and Franklin Pangborn. We'll also say no thanks to Ed Wynn.However, the musical numbers are somewhat more entertaining - especially if you're a Ray Bolger or big band fan - though some are disappointingly pedestrian. The background music though is melodiously scored and fully deserved its Academy Award nomination.All in all, as said above, Stage Door Canteen is a rather flat-footed blessing.

This is my fourth review of a "war musical"-having previously commented on Something for the Boys, Thank Your Lucky Stars, and This is the Army-that was made during and alluded to World War II. In this one, four G.I.'s are given a pass to New York and go the the title place where they have free refreshments and dances. Three of them meet the women who work there and they all seem to fall in love. That's all I'll mention of the plot which is more serious than the previous ones of the movies I just mentioned and as such there is more gravity concerning the dialogue when they discuss fates of what might happen. But that doesn't take away from the entertainment of seeing so many cameos of the various stars that appear here with plenty of good comedy and music that gives one pause constantly. I won't mention who they are (you probably know already if you've looked at the cast list or the other reviews near mine) but if you love this particular era of movies, you won't be disappointed when you see them. So on that note, I highly recommend Stage Door Canteen.

This film and "Hollywood Canteen" are interesting little curios from WWII. During the war, actors on Broadway and Hollywood set up clubs for vets awaiting shipment overseas. In the clubs, the soldiers and sailors would be entertained by top acts and the wait staff were all actors. This film concerns the Broadway location and as such features many actors who are mostly famous for stage acting (such as Lunt and Fontaine) though there are quite a few familiar faces of actors who appeared on both coasts. Both films feature plots with fictional characters who all work or attend the Stage Door Canteen--and the actual actors who worked there are in the film as well. In light of this, the film might just have the largest list of acting credits I've ever seen! As for the plot, it's okay but is really just an excuse to feature a bazillion cameos. People like me who recognize many of the faces will no doubt enjoy the film (even if I'm not nearly old enough to have seen this film when it debuted). However, I assume younger folks who are not fans of classic films probably won't be very impressed when they see the likes of George Jessel, Judith Anderson, Ethel Waters and the like--as they'll have no idea who these folks were.I have a few observations of things you might want to look for if you see the film: Franklin Pangborn had an interesting scene with Johnny Weissmuller. Johnny takes off his shirt and Pangborn (who in the early 30s played several gay characters) stares at him admiringly.There were lots of sexual innuendos in this film. While they were all pretty mild, there's no mistaking several of them. I think the reason they were included is that this film was often sent abroad to show the troops--hence the presence of Gypsy Rose Lee! While Count Basie and Ethel Waters appeared to perform, there were very few Blacks in the film apart from them. I wonder if they weren't allowed in the Canteen and perhaps had to go to a "Colored Only" club instead. I assume this is the case, as the military was still not integrated and this would not occur until shortly before the Korean War. Also, in a Jitterbugging scene, the distant shot shows several Black men dancing--but the closeup is only White soldiers! There were lots of allied servicemen in the film (such as Australian, Chinese, Russian and Brits). I wonder if this really happened and assume foreign servicemen at the club was actually very, very rare--after all, what would they be doing in the US? Except in a few very rare cases, you think that they'd be in their own countries or at least somewhere in Europe or the Pacific.I would love to see this film on DVD where you could turn on and off credits that appeared DURING the film to tell you who all the famous folks were. My wife got pretty annoyed with me when I pointed them all out--and, oddly, whenever she seemed to ask who someone was, I didn't know! Ha! Overall, I really enjoyed this film. The plot, for what it was, was pretty entertaining but what I really liked were the many, many cameos and performances. A nice little window into yesterday.

"Stage Door Canteen" was created by the theater people in New York as a way of entertaining the young men who were going to fight in WWII. Most of the young men passing through the canteen, were facing an unsure fate, but at the moment they were among the Broadway luminaries of the period, all the fears and troubles evaporated as they stood among the stars of the New York theater.In fact, what comes across in the film is the easy camaraderie all the young men shared with people that otherwise they had never met in their ordinary lives. Meeting the likes of Tallulah Bankhead, a woman larger than life, was almost impossible for most of the people going to war.Some of the best actors of that era are seen doing "supporting roles" in the film. Katherine Cornell, Paul Muni, Katherine Hepburn, Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontaine, Ina Claire, Ray Bolger, Helen Hayes, are seen interacting with the GIs and as they give them hope and courage about an uncertain future of their lives.The film is good to watch some of these long gone theater stars in a nostalgic look at our past.