Swing Hostess

Judy (Martha Tilton) auditions as a singer for a band but her audition isn't properly heard by the man that counts and she gets rejected. She then goes to make a record but once again fortune goes against her as her voice is mistaken for that of Phoebe (Betty Brodel) who wins a singing contract as a result. Will Judy realize her dream to become a singer.............?

The film is light and entertaining and Martha Tilton has a great voice. She sings 4 good songs and 1 turkey called "The Highway Polka". The latter song is painful to watch mainly due to Bobo's (Cliff Nazarro) cheesy smiling face and very predictable honking of his car horn. He also speaks in a stupid way. The other irritating character is the landlord Blodgett (Emmett Lynn) who is one of those comedy characters that just isn't ever funny. The rest of the cast are OK and the film has some funny moments, eg, Brodel's bad singing and the reactions of the piano player. It's the singing of Martha Tilton that makes this film something to watch again.

Plot- a talented songstress tries to break into the business, but is hampered by mishaps and a connaiving rival.

Okay, I'm a sucker for low-budget quickies, hoping for the occasional over-achiever. Happily, this is one of them. The flick's really more a comedy with a complex plot than a musical. But the pacing's snappy, the acting's colorful, and Tilton's such a sweetheart. Sure, it's the sassy Adrian and the scheming Brodel who get the acting and screentime, still, songstress Tilton's lovely voice carried me away. I just wish she had more numbers uncrowded by the screenplay. On the other hand, I'd never seen the feisty Brodel before. Too bad she didn't opt for a longer career since her talent for villianry is darkly clear. At the same time, I was hoping for some swing dancing with the flaring skirts so popular at the time, but maybe the budget didn't allow it. Anyway, the pacing never drags, while the sticky plot's happily softened by a supporting cast of humorous oldsters. So give it a look-see, especially for the "liltin' Martha Tilton".

Made at PRC pictures in 1944 this very funny musical is a near cousin to SINGIN THE RAIN. It delivers a good swing musical soundtrack set in the record industry with a Lina Lamont sound-a-like bad girl called Phoebe Forbes getting inappropriate bitchy stardom over good girl Martha Tilton (who just died Dec 8, 2006) and her hilarious wise-cracking room mate Iris Adrian. The whole film is a case and chase of mistaken musical identity with horrible tuneless Phoebe deluding herself that she has singing talent and allowing Martha's music to be heard as hers. If you watch this film then have a look at Betty Hutton in THE PERILS OF PAULINE made in 1947, you can put the jigsaw puzzle of both films together and get a rough cut of SINGING IN THE RAIN made in '52. One fascinating scene in SWING HOSTESS involves a fantastic deco style jukebox where instead of button pressing, the client phones a switchboard/DJ girl who has a library of records at her fingertips in a room somewhere and she plays the selection. They can talk (in this case shout and be insolent) to each other thru a microphone and speaker in the jukebox. What an invention! What an installation. PRC spent some real money on this film and it is well produced with some excellent sets and decor...so unusual for them. I would suggest this film did very well for them and proved once again that there is so many hilarious musical gems to be found in 'poverty row'. The showbiz boarding house they all live in if crammed with idiotic vaudeville types who can't stop running about and performing tricks and stunts on each other. The whole film is pitched at a silly level which only adds to the fun.

This opus glaringly displays the lack of talent that 'poverty row' studios had to contend with compared to the major players. You won't find much here in the way of decent Set design, make-up, clever editing or good photography. Martha Tilton has a nice voice but doesn't project any personality, although this may be the fault of the poor direction. The only performance really worth watching is that of the gorgeous Iris Adrian and even she is just a little too strident in the role. Earle Bruce brings some macho charisma to his role but incredibly this appears to be the only film he ever made. Although it's not a total write-off it certainly makes you realise that a major studio could have brought so many incidental extras to the filming that they could turn even the flimsiest material into something worth watching.

Martha Tilton has been auditioning for a position as a band singer for what seems like forever. Finally, she and her friend Iris Adrian take a job as operators in a juke-box center, where customers call in for a particular song at their location. Meanwhile, a test record a friend made for her gets mixed up with one done by Betty Brodel, who's being drooled over by record producer Harry Holman. Because it's actually Miss Tilton's voice -- she had been a vocalist for Benny Goodman, with a hit recording of "And the Angels Sing" -- Miss Brodel gets a contract and a chance to sing for Charles Collins' band.

It's a plot that's not remarkable in broad, and it's been done many times, well and poorly. This one has several advantages, including songs by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston, a couple of years before they hit it big. There are also some nice moments of gag comedy, and it's a pleasure to watch the professional musicians gawp in horrified astonishment at Miss Brodel's voice.

It also has a nice example of inadvertent documentary, showing how centralized jukebox systems worked.

The names in this are not ones to conjure with. Behind the camera was Jack Greenhaigh, a talented cinematographer who never got out of the Bs and frequently used his considerable talents lensing ludicrous films like ROBOT MONSTER and HITLER -- BEAST OF BERLIN. Sam Newfield, a mainstay of the usually dire PRC, directed, and shows that with a good script and eager talent, he can turn out a happy, modest movie.