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Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Lack of good storyline.

Boring

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

While this was not one of MGM's BIG musicals, it's an extremely pleasant A film. It's said it was one of Astaire's favorite projects, perhaps because it reflects the atmosphere of when he and his sister were a dance team in vaudeville. In terms of reflecting the accuracy of the biography of the song-writing team of Harry Ruby and Bert Kalmar, it's generally considered to me more faithful to the truth than many biopics...perhaps in part because the real Harry Ruby was an adviser to the picture.The sound track is terrific, with many of Kalmar & Ruby's best songs included -- the title song, "Nevertheless", "I Wanna Be Loved By You", "Who's Sorry Now", and "Thinking Of You"...and others. However, a few of their well-known songs are not included, including "Baby Face" and "Kiss To Build A Dream On" (made famous by Louis Armstrong).It's difficult to think of a more perfect cast for the script. Kalmar had been a dancer on the vaudeville circuit...and is played beautifully by Fred Astaire. Harry Ruby had a fixation about baseball...perfect for the clowning of Red Skelton. And, there's no question that Fred and Red had chemistry in this film. Although it's probably "White Christmas" that Vera-Ellen is best known for, this is probably a better acting job on her part; she's the love interest for Astaire. Arlene Dahl -- who was said by the inventors of Technicolor to be the perfect face and complexion for Techniclor -- is so beautiful here...the only problem being that to fit the story line we don't really see much of her until later in film. Keenan Wynn is around, but is of little consequence.A couple of interesting facts: Gloria DeHaven plays her own mother in what amounts to a cameo singing "Who's Sorry Now". Debbie Reynolds plays "boop-a-doop" girl Helen Kane, but the singing voice is actually Helen Kane.One review of the film at the time said this was MGM at the height of it's musical genre. And it is a darned good film! Well worth watching!

The third of MGM's songwriter bios (after "Till the Clouds Roll By" and "Words and Music") is no different than the first two with one major exception-outstanding performances by the leads. I can't say if there is any resemblance between Kalmar and Ruby and the two men who play them here-Fred Astaire and Red Skelton, but unlike Robert Walker (who played Jerome Kern), Tom Drake (Richard Rodgers) and Mickey Rooney (a very Andy Hardy like Lorenz Hart), they are certainly much more convincing as members of the music industry during the heyday of Tin Pan Alley. In films like this, it is the songs which count, and there are loads of them. Debbie Reynolds briefly gets to "poo poo pee doo" as the real-life Helen Kane, singing "I Want to Be Loved By You". You won't hear the future Molly Brown's real singing voice; The real Miss Kane energetically re-recorded the song, convincingly lipsinked by Debbie. She practically molests Carleton Carpenter in the on-stage version of that song.The beautiful "Nevertheless" and "Thinking of You" are love themes for Astaire and his leading lady, Vera-Ellen. VE isn't convincing in the acting scenes, but is of course, one of the loveliest and most graceful dancers of the golden age of movie musicals. Like fellow MGM dancer Cyd Charisse, her singing was dubbed, here by Anita Ellis. Not dubbed are Gale Robbins as Skelton's social-climbing girlfriend (singing "All Alone Monday"), Gloria DeHaven (playing her real-life mother, singing "Who's Sorry Now?"), and the exquisitely beautiful Arlene Dahl singing "I Love You So Much". See the Wheeler and Woolsey musical comedy "The Cuckoos" (RKO, 1930) for a very funny rendition of that song performed by Bert Wheeler and Dorothy Lee. Astaire briefly sings a verse of "Horray For Captain Spaulding" from "Animal Crackers". Little known songs such as "Where Did You Get That Girl?", "So Long, Ooh Long", and "My Sunny Tennessee" are also performed and worthy of being included in the film.It is the title song, however, which holds the film together. With music by Skelton's Ruby, he keeps playing it over and over, annoying Astaire's Kalmar right up to the very end. ("You Are a Dope", he sings to his music after Astaire storms out after telling Skelton, "I'm going to tell you in three little words. You're a dope.") Also amusing is a magic act used to introduce the two men that resembles sequences in the musical bios "Star!" and "Funny Lady" where everything that can go wrong on stage does.As I stated, I can't confirm any resemblance between the real life songwriting team and the stars, but Astaire and Skelton are outstanding. Skelton totally underplays the comedy for one of the only times in his film career, and it really works. That resulted in him winning one of the first Golden Globes. The chemistry between Astaire and Vera-Ellen really only comes to life when they dance. She was one of only a few other women (Rita Hayworth, Lucille Bremer, Cyd Charisse) who would work in more than one film opposite the dancing maestro. When they dance, it's equal to Fred and Ginger at their best, but considering that such talented dancers as Eleanor Powell, Ann Miller and Judy Garland only got him once, it is an odd decision for them to work together twice when he had much more chemistry in the non-musical scenes with those performers.Ms. Dahl, never the star she should have been, is along with Lucille Ball, Rita Hayworth and Maureen O'Hara, one of the best looking redhead in films. Technicolor loves her, and she is absolutely charming in the few scenes she has. Just try not to forget the image of her on the staircase revealing her loveliness (and beauty spot) after pulling down the feathered fan. Keenan Wynn, giving his typically gruff but somewhat tender performance as their determined agent, is excellent as always.Kalmar and Ruby, while not as well known by name as the other men MGM did bio's on (Sigmund Romberg in "Deep in My Heart" was the other), wrote many songs which are classics today, and this is a great video song book to present them in. The film is not quite excellent, but the chemistry between Astaire and Skelton is really nice. The ending with the title song is a nice little twist and is quite moving.

By 1950 we'd had bio-pics of Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, George Gershwin and Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, giants all but in 1950 MGM offered a bio-pic of what in England we would call the Second Eleven, not quite the very highest level but just a tad behind. Three Little Words has been sadly neglected despite being far more accurate factually than all the other four put together. Where fact has been embellished is in small details - for example the two men never quarreled and never split up, there was a film actress named Eileen Percy and she did marry Harry Ruby but in the interests of dramatic tension a quarrel and a split was fabricated. Fred Astaire is alwayd worth the price of admission even when saddled with something as inept as Second Chorus and here, as Bert Kalmar he treats admirers to some excellent dancing and equally excellent acting. Though I've never been able to warm to Vera Ellen she cannot be faulted as Astaire's wife, similarly Red Skelton's appeal has always eluded me but here he manages to subdue this usual OTT schtick and turns in a fine performance as Harry Ruby. Throw in Gloria de Haven performing the great ballad Who's Sorry Now and we're talking wonderful movie.

Wow -- what a joy and what a surprise this film really is! Besides the presence of Astaire and a few other cast members this film doesn't promise much, but it really delivers -- a lot of laughs, good music, great dancing, and most surprisingly of all, some solid performances from the whole cast including Skelton. I would even go so far as to say that this is probably the best musical bio-picture produced by MGM and only "The Jolson Story" strikes me as a stronger film among all the musical bio-pics I've seen period.When I see Red Skelton's name on a picture, I usually expect to see him mugging all the way to the bank like a vaudeville trooper with a gun to his head. But here he actually restrains himself and does a very good job, perhaps because he's playing a real person, songwriter Harry Ruby (who was credited as a technical adviser on this film). He's paired with Astaire's Bert Kalmar -- and Astaire responds with a performance that is likewise far more character-oriented than usual, and quite nuanced as he veers from anger to sentimentality. Astaire is paired with Vera-Ellen, one of his all-time best partners.The musical numbers were staged by Hermes Pan -- and it shows. These sequences are almost as impressive as those in "The Band Wagon" and "Singin' in the Rain" (with better music than "Rain"). I was particularly impressed with "Mr. and Mrs. Hoofer at Home", although I think it was too sophisticated for them to pass it off as a 1910s vaudeville number. But all is forgiven.As a side note, I found it really amusing how the Kalmar character and others seemed to think about pop music genres strictly in germs of their relationship to romanticized concepts of exoticism. For example he "fixes" Ruby's "Araby" song by turning it into a Mammy Song. And at one point while musing on the direction they should go with a song, Kalmar says "you know, there hasn't been an Oriental song in a while...." Kalmar's concept of an Oriental song being, of course, the ridiculous "So Long Oo-Long". I almost fell out of my chair laughing, and I'm not completely sure that the humor was unintentional.Of course this film probably bears little truth in terms of the reality of Kalmar's and Ruby's lives. But then neither did "Till the Clouds Roll By", "Night and Day" or "Rhapsody in Blue" ..... and at least this film was entertaining. The versions of Kalmar's and Ruby's songs are great -- in fact I read that seeing this film as a teenager inspired young Connie Francis to eventually sing the song "Who's Sorry Now?" and make it even more famous than it ever was before. I'm thinking that she probably won't be the last person inspired by this joyous film.