Watch Too Many Girls For Free

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Very Cool!!!

Simply A Masterpiece

best movie i've ever seen.

No, this ain't Shakespeare! In fact, at least looking back now, it's a slightly below average film. But there are things here that make it interesting.First, this is where Lucille Ball first met Desi Arnaz (in his first film, after appearing in the Broadway play of the same name), and they married soon thereafter. To my surprise, although he's a bit rough around the edges, Arnaz was quite good here. Lucy was very good, also, although I thought that at 29 she looked too old to be a college student.Second, you don't have to look very hard to see a very young (24) Van Johnson, as a chorus boy, in his first film, and he does have a few (very few) lines of dialog.Third, you have one of the most beautiful songs ever written in this sort-of musical: "You're Nearer" by Rodgers & Hart. Wanna hear it done perfectly? Look for Perry Como's 1968 version.But then we get to the problems. For example, a silly plot, but not one you'd hold your nose over. And you've got Ann Miller, who was always a bit too butch for me. They throw in Frances Langford to sing a couple of songs (and she was a good singer), but then give her little to do in the story. Oh, and just out of curiosity, why does Desi Arnaz's character have the Irish last name of Lynch (I ask because I am a Lynch).Richard Carlson is pretty decent as Lucille Ball's love interest. Eddie Bracken is okay as another football player. The other supporting players do their jobs, but not much more.So, as I said, there are some interesting reasons to watch this film even though it's strictly a B-type film (even though it may have been an "A" film to RKO). Let's put it this way, this is not one of those "A" list MGM musicals.

TOO MANY GIRLS (RKO Radio, 1940), produced and directed by George Abbott, could very well be a musical about Broadway chorus girls. In reality, it's a college rah rah screen treatment from the 1939 Broadway George Abbott produced musical play. Though the film version doesn't have the major star power of RKO's thirties screen team of a Fred Astaire or Ginger Rogers, nor the second feature status presence of Gene Raymond or Ann Sothern as its selected choices, TOO MANY GIRLS casts Lucille Ball and Richard Carlson as its leading players, with much attention going towards its basic newcomers, Eddie Bracken and Desi Arnaz, reprising their original stage roles along with Hal Leroy and briefly, Van Johnson.The prologue opens at The Hunted Stag lodge managed by Mrs. Tewksbury (Ivy Scott), where her nephew, Clint Kelly (Richard Carlson) and his South American friend, Manuelito Lynch (Desi Arnaz), both college football players have jobs working as waiters. As JoJo Jordan (Eddie Bracken) of Harvard and Al Terwilliger (Hal Leroy) of Yale come to the lodge to persuade Manuelito to play football for their college, Harvey Casey (Harry Shannon), a self-made businessman of Casey Allied Industries, enters the scene where he's to meet with his daughter, Consuelo (Lucille Ball), Connie, who's been deported from Switzerland, and eluded her father's top detectives on her trail back to the states, arrives with the news of following her father's suggesting by going to college, the college being her father's alma mater of Pottawatamie in Stop Gap, New Mexico. Suspecting more than what Connie is telling him, Casey hires Clint and the other three football players as $50 a week bodyguards and guaranteed employment at his firm upon graduation to individually watch over Connie so not to be suspicious of being trailed. While at the campus in the middle of nowhere that consists of ten girls for any one man, the four bodyguards enroll, making the acquaintance of student body members of Pepe (Ann Miller) and Eileen Eilers (Frances Langford) while Clint does his part trailing Connie in and out of campus, finding she's having a secret rendezvous with some mysterious man.A slight story highlighted by its numerous song and dance interludes scored by the songwriting team of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, including: "The Heroes of the Fall" (sung by football players); "You're Nearer" (sung by voice dubbing for Lucille Ball); "Pottawatamie" (sung by Harry Shannon and Chester Clute); "Pottawatamie" (reprise by co-eds); "Cake Walk" (sung by Frances Langford); "Spic 'n Spanish" (sung by Desi Arnaz, danced by Ann Miller, tap dance solo by Hal Leroy, chorus); "Love Never Went to College" (sung by Frances Langford); "Look Out" (sung by Ann Miller and Frances Langford); "I Didn't Know What Time It Was" (sung by Lucille Ball); "You're Nearer" (sung by chorus); and "The Conga" (finale, cast, bongo drum playing by Desi Arnaz). Though some of the best tuneful moments go to the graceful presence of Frances Langford, and fancy tap dancing by either Hal Leroy or Ann Miller, the singing and conga playing of Desi Arnaz certainly stands apart from the rest, marking the beginning of the new phase of Latin rhythm that would become the rage by other Hispanic entertainers through much of the forties.While TOO MANY GIRLS might have been of some interest in 1940 by those familiar with the original Broadway show, by today's standards, it's where the legend of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz all began. Not so much as a motion picture item for Lucy and Desi, at least not until THE LONG, LONG TRAILER (1954) and FOREVER DARLING (1956) for MGM came their way, but for their immortal television history making success for their I LOVE LUCY (1951-57) comedy series. Interestingly, aside from a very brief moment where they look at one another, and sharing no actual scenes together, the twosome married shortly after the film's completion. For TOO MANY GIRLS, it's the Cuban-born Desi, not its feature-billed Lucy, who gathers much of the attention of a South American brought up in an all-male household of nine brothers and twenty uncles. No wonder he'd rather go to college where there's too many girls, so little time! As for Lucy's Connie being described by one of the detectives of being "a very tricky girl," TV fans would immediately know this is Lucy based on her Lucy Ricardo TV character that perfectly fits that description. Even with that reputation, Lucy's Connie is not a slapstick queen of comedy by any means. Yet her talent for comedy wouldn't be recognized until much later in her career. With Richard Carlson being a bland co-star, the naturally funny Eddie Bracken certainly makes up for it.By contrast to the many college musicals of this period climaxed by football games and crowd cheers, TOO MANY GIRLS certainly falls into that category on an entertaining level. Formerly available on video cassette and regular broadcast item on cable TV's American Movie Classics prior to 2001, TOO MANY GIRLS, available on DVD, can be seen and enjoyed whenever shown on Turner Classic Movies. (***)

The flimsy book doesn't help a bit, and Mr. Abbott's inability to translate the stylizations of Broadway to the more naturalistic world of the film pretty much doom this one to pure anthropological significance. Yes, it's the first Lucy-Desi project, even if they have no scenes together and were reportedly unimpressed with each other during the making. So do not look for that Desilu magic, as it was still 10 years in the future. The movie crams together too many genre conventions for its own good: college football pic, zany mix-up, stiff leading man (Richard Carlson!), lost gal drama, fish outta water, south of zee border and worse, it features the dull Francis Langford as chief songbird of lyrics at the edges of the putrid. The dance numbers look like rehearsals for the invasion of Normandy--masses if unskilled, badly co-ordinated extras in clumsy formation-- and for some reason unbilled chorus boy Van Johnson, who can't dance a lick, is in the front row of every single crowd shot. But there are two saving graces. The first is the very young Ann Miller, also 10 years before her glory days at MGM, as Pepe, a racist caricature to be sure but one that can dance. In dark make-up as per cliché, Miller fricassees up a storm, giving a preview of the gifts she was to bring to the Freed unit.. And she's only the second best dancer in the picture! The best is Hal La Roy, and this is his only starring role in a major picture (he is featured in some Vitaphone WB musical shorts, such as "Jitterbut No. 1" but no other movies.) Lord what a talent, and what a crime he never got to do more. Like Gene Nelson of a subsequent generation, he just never got the break his talent warranted. So watch, enjoy and conjure what might have been when he does his loose-legged, spurred solo atop someone's idea of Mexican fountain which is the central architectural feature of Pottowattamie College" in Last Stand, N.M.: What a number, and how did he get those legs not only to bend like that but to bend like that at warp speed? You'll think Industrial Light and Magic computer-generated the number, that's how fast and astonishing it is. Boy, would I have liked to see him in a major film with someone like Hermes Pan or Stanley Donen calling the shots. Too bad and so sad it never happened.

Rodgers and Hart rarely were served well in the movies. A handful of classic musicals in the middle 1930s (including LOVE ME TONIGHT and HALLELUJAH. I'M A BUM) and an occasional partial success (MISSISSIPPI, abetted by Bing Crosby's voice in two standards), but most of their best work was shelved. The fact was Richard Rodgers would not really be well served in terms of his scores until his partner's last name was Hammerstein. TOO MANY GIRLS is not one of the best scores, but the film version is actually quite good. As pointed out elsewhere the plot is like GIRL CRAZY, but the central figure is a female (Lucille Ball) not a male (Mickey Rooney). The film is the one where Lucy met her future husband and partner Desi Arnaz, but (ironically for what we now know about them), in this film Desi is paired off with Anne Miller, and Lucy with Richard Carlson. The other star (Eddie Bracken) is paired off with Francis Langford. This is one of those musicals for a wet afternoon at home, and it works as entertainment. It has some good moments that are unexpected. Lucy is shipped to this out of the way college in the southwest (for its day it is ahead of its time, as Desi is one of the football stars at the college, and Anne - his girlfriend - is a Native American). The reason she is sent is her too open sex life. Her father wants to end this, and he does by sending her to his alma mater. But her father is played by the old reliable Harry Shannon, here (for a change) a millionaire. He gets a chance to warble the university theme song, which is as asinine as "Boola Boola" is for Yale. Shannon gives it his full pipes and acting, even pounding his breasts while singing the nitwit lyrics (Lorenz Hart must have been enjoying himself when he wrote this - his version of "Grand Old Ivy" in HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING). Regretfully Shannon, after shipping Lucy to the college, never reappears in the film - he really deserved a second silly number.One number from the show was cut from the film - probably wisely. Desi does eventually do his "Babaloo" number in the film, and with real spirit (forming a conga line the others are on). But in the show he had a tune, "Everythin' is Spic and Spanish!". While it would be curious to hear Desi singing it, it did not make the film. As a result the film is still available to be seen by the public. I suspect if the number had been kept in (and why shouldn't it in that simpler, more openly racist period), Latino groups would be demanding it be cut in re-release of the movie. I suspect that Arnaz, a proud Cubano, would probably have also regretted singing such a tune in a released movie after say 1970 or so.The film is also one of the few films directed by Broadway legend George Abbott, who directed the stage version. Abbott also directed the film version of DAMN YANKEES!, again a musical he directed on stage. While both films are good, I notice one tendency by Abbott that is barely controlled because it appears in both films: at some point in his musical numbers he picks up and misuses a close-up. In DAMN YANKEES! one of the songs involves three of the baseball players dancing. This is not annoying, but Abbott suddenly pulls a close-up of one of them, winking at the others (who we cannot see), tipping his cap at an angle and stepping forward to do his soft shoe act. We don't have to see this close up, and Abbott (who probably had done that done by the actor on stage) did not think of that. Here, in a major dance number involving all the student body at the college, he pushes the camera towards a cannon that is pulled 90 degrees to face the camera, and when the camera is about ten feet from the cannon the cannon is fired "into the faces of the audience". Again Abbott probably did that on stage, but it is less than effective in close up in a film. In fact, had he done it from a distance it would have blended in nicely with the dance number.Still those mishaps are few. I don't dwell on the plot (dealing with colleges and football and the girls versus their boyfriends until the final clinches), but it is definitely worth watching once or twice. So I give it an "8" out of "10".