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Evelyn lays a big egg in "One Heavenly Night"

ONE HEAVENLY NIGHT (1931). Director: George Fitzmaurice.

Flower girl/usherette Lilli (the amusingly named Evelyn Laye) aspires to be just like the notorious man-hungry chanteuse Fritzi (Lilyan Tashman), and she gets her chance when Fritzi asks Lilli to impersonate her on a trip to the tiny kingdom of Zuppa. There Lilli meets the handsome Count Tibor (John Boles), and the two fall in love after an initial unpleasant encounter. One Heavenly Night is, alas, not an example of one of your more memorable operettas, having an uninteresting story, tedious comic relief, and songs that are only vaguely pleasant at best. Playing a young ladies man, Boles is sexier than in such dramas as Back Street and Stella Dallas, in which he was convincingly middle-aged only a year later. Neither Laye nor Tashman are terribly attractive by Hollywood standards; although Laye isn't a bad actress, she lacks distinction. One problem with Laye in this movie is that she's rather affected even before she begins her impersonation of the haughty Fritzi. Leon Errol is on hand as Lilli's vocal coach and loving buddy, but even the great comedian isn't able to do anything to save the picture. Laye made a few more films in the thirties, and then wasn't seen again for twenty years. That same year Fitzmaurice directed Greta Garbo in Mata Hari and he guided Barbara Stanwyck in her second film and first sound picture, The Locked Door.

Verdict: A not-so-heavenly hour and a half. *1/2.

Lana Turner and Richard Carlson

DANCING CO-ED (1939). Director: S. Sylvan Simon.

"She stinks!"

Just when the Dancing Tobins are to begin a new film, Toddy Tobin (a barely-seen Mary Beth Hughes) gets pregnant, and the search is on for someone to co-star with her husband, Freddy (Lee Bowman sans mustache). Learning that the studio is to conduct a talent search on college campuses, Freddy protests that he needs a professional, so it is decided to fix the contest, send talented Patty Marlowe (Lana Turner) to one of the institutions, and make damn certain that she is the winner. Patty gets involved with the editor of the school paper, "Pug" Braddock (Richard Carlson), who figures there has to be a "plant" and decides to ferret out who she is even as Patty assists him as a way of hiding the truth. Will Patty go to Hollywood, or will her scheme come undone? The movie begins well, but the fun peters out halfway through or earlier, and you'll find that you couldn't care less how it comes out. The script lets down the players, who are game and enthusiastic throughout, with Turner [Love Has Many Faces] and Carlson [All I Desire] swell in the leads, Ann Rutherford perky as a secretary who helps Patty, Leon Errol his usual fun self as Patty's father, and Thurston Hall and Monty Woolley also briefly on hand as well. I think I spotted drummer Buddy Rich a couple of times. Band leader Artie Shaw, playing himself, is third-billed but only gets one line of dialogue! He must have impressed Lana Turner, however, because she married him the following year [he also married Ava Gardner and Evelyn Keyes, among others]. Hal Le Sueur, Joan Crawford's brother, plays a handsome college student but has no lines. S. Sylvan Simon also directed the far superior The Fuller Brush Man.

Verdict: Picture could have been cute but it turns into a stink bomb.**