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Pretty Good

Good movie but grossly overrated

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Anachronisms abound in this 1945 film. Fred MacMurray actually sings here and he does a good job at it.The story of a man who is physically unfit to serve during World War 11 is transported back in time by a genie who can't seem to get him back to modern day.First, going back to the Revolutionary War Days, it was ridiculous and offensive to hear the Hessians saluting in the Nazi way.We see MacMurray with Columbus and the Indians as well as with the settlements of New Amsterdam.June Haver and Joan Leslie provide the love interests and Anthony Quinn appears as an Indian in the film.

First saw this half a lifetime ago on a black-and-white TV in a small Samoan village and thought it was hilarious. Now, having seen it for the second time, so much later, I don't find it hilarious. I don't find ANYTHING hilarious anymore. But this is a witty and light-hearted comedy that moves along quickly without stumbling and I thoroughly enjoyed it.It's 1945 and Fred MacMurray is a 4F who's dying to get into one of the armed forces. He rubs a lamp in the scrapyard he's managing and a genie appears to grant him a few wishes. (Ho hum, right? But though the introduction is no more than okay, the fantasies are pretty lively.) MacMurray tells the genie that he wants to be in the army. Poof, and he is marching along with Washington's soldiers into a particularly warm and inviting USO where June Haver and Joan Leslie are wearing lots of lace doilies or whatever they are, and lavender wigs. Washington sends MacMurray to spy on the enemy -- red-coating, German-speaking Hessians, not Brits. The Hessians are jammed into a Bierstube and singing a very amusing drinking song extolling the virtues of the Vaterland, "where the white wine is winier/ and the Rhine water's Rhinier/ and the bratwurst is mellower/ and the yellow hair is yellower/ and the Frauleins are jucier/ and the goose steps are goosier." Something like that. The characterizations are fabulous, as good as Sig Rumann's best. Otto Preminger is the suspicious and sinister Hessian general. "You know, Heidelberg, vee are 241 to 1 against you -- but vee are not afraid." I can't go on too long with these fantasies but they're all quite funny, and so are the lyrics. When he wishes he were in the Navy, MacMurray winds up with Columbus and the fantasy is presented as grand opera. "Don't you know that sailing west meant/ a terrifically expensive investment?/ And who do you suppose provides the means/ but Isabella, Queen of Queens." When they sight the New World, someone remarks that it looks great. "I don't care what it looks like," mutters Columbus, "but that place is going to be called Columbusland."Anyway, everything is finally straightened out, though the genie by this time is quite drunk, and MacMurray winds up in the Marine Corps with the right girl.I've made it sound too cute, maybe, but it IS cute. The kids will enjoy the puffs of smoke and the magic and the corny love story. The adults will get a kick out of the more challenging elements of the story (who are the Hessians?) unless they happen to be college graduates, in which case they might want to stick with the legerdemain and say, "Wow! Awesome!"

I happened to see this movie twice or more and found it well made! WWII had freshly ended and the so-called "Cold War" was about to begin. This movie could, therefore, be defined as one of the best "propaganda", patriotic movies preparing Americans and, secondly, people from the still to be formed "Western NATO block" of countries to face the next coming menace. The movie celebrates the might of the US, through the centuries, while projecting itself onwards to the then present war, which had just ended. Nice and funny is the way of describing the discovering of the American Continent by Columbus and pretty the "espisode" of New Amsterdam and the purchasing of Manhattan from a drunk local Indian .. Must see it (at least once, for curiosity of fashion of propaganda through time)! :)

During a Kurt Weill celebration in Brooklyn, WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? was finally unearthed for a screening. It is amazing that a motion picture, from any era, that has Weill-Gershwin collaborations can possibly be missing from the screens. The score stands tall, and a CD of the material, with Gershwin and Weill, only underscores its merits, which are considerable. Yes, the film has its problems, but the score is not one of them. Ratoff is not in his element as the director of this musical fantasy, and Fred MacMurray cannot quite grasp the material. Then, too, the 'modern' segment is weakly written. BUT the fantasy elements carry the film to a high mark, as does the work of the two delightful leading ladies - Joan Leslie and June Haver. Both have the charm that this kind of work desperately needs to work. As a World War II salute to our country's history - albeit in a 'never was' framework, the film has its place in Hollywood musical history and should be available for all to see and to find its considerable merits.