Radio Pictures sounds like a contradiction, but "radio" was still a byword for this high-tech modern world. (See also, kid-wagons called "Radio Flyers.") But there was still room in this fast-paced, ever-changing world for Old Men. Particularly this guy:
It's a minor musical, but it has its moments. It's set in the carefree world of College, where the Depression never seems to alight; it begins on a train where all the crazy college kids burst into song. Evelyn Poe is her name, I believe:
She only made a couple of movies. She may have been too much even for the time, as you'll see.
When they get to college everyone goes outside under the moon and spoons in the soft glow of lights placed on ground level.
It's a modern campus. Welcome to Gropius U:
Freshmen wear beanies, the Seniors have their own sidewalk - that sort of college. No actual learning, but they hang around the quadrangle and wisecrack. Is there a plot? There is a plot. An industrialist discovers that his son is doing poorly, because he's hanging around with a gold-digger gal, and they're . . . dancing! Holding hands! Making love! (In the old sense, which means everything but. )
Betty Grable is in the movie; Lucille Ball is somewhere back there. But it's Poe you might want to watch, because she appears to be competely insane:
But it's all a wink and an elbow in the ribs; she's obviously comic relief. And so cute! I wish I knew who she was supposed to be mocking here; maybe no one. Just the conventions of the day. Either someone took her aside and said "Sorry, sweetheart - you're cute and you got a nice figure, but you're not the sex appeal in this one. Don't kid-sister it, either."
So she came up with this, which is nails "Sexy" and "Adorable" in a way that should have made her a star.
