Search - Three Little Words on DVD

"Look, it's okay to admire my wife, but would you mind takin

H. Bala | Carson - hey, we have an IKEA store! - CA USA | 08/31/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Here's the plot: Before they were partners, Bert Kalmar (Fred Astaire) was one half of the popular dance act Kalmar & Brown, and Harry Ruby (Red Skelton) was a struggling piano player/songplugger. The first time Kalmar and Ruby met, it doesn't turn out well. Kalmar, you see, is obsessed with magic and moonlights as a stage magician. When Ruby is assigned as his assistant, he botches Kalmar's magic act disastrously and earns Kalmar's wrath. However, when Kalmar suffers a back stage knee accident and has to break up his dance team, he bumps into Ruby again. This time, they manage to collaborate on a song before things go south, and that, in essence, was the birth of their successful tin pan alley songwriting partnership.

The movie takes us thru a decade of their partnership, as they unveil classic standards such "My Sunny Tennessee," "Who's Sorry Now?," "Nevertheless," "All Alone Monday," and the intoxicating "Thinking of You." Along the way, we get to see Kalmar's fixation with magic and Ruby's baseball mania. We also witness the duo engage in minor and major spats, actually resulting in an estrangement between the two, which isn't resolved until the movie's final act when Kalmar finally produces lyrics to a longtime unusable Ruby tune.

Let's face it: no one does hats, top coats, and tails better than Fred Astaire. But, going into it, Fred Astaire and Red Skelton didn't seem, at first, to be the sexy choice to play Kalmar and Ruby (especially Skelton), but the end result doesn't lie. Astaire and Skelton make it work beautifully. Three Little Words is a funny, touching, nostalgic musical bio which I've seen so many times I've got the order of the songs (and most of the lyrics) memorized. In the Astaire film lexicon, this film might not rank up there in critics' eyes, but in my humble opinion, this fun blast from the past is right up there in terms of entertainment value. Red Skelton, who I usually think is one note, raucous, and borderline annoying, here is more subdued and hams it up less. He actually acts! Fred, who must tie with Bruce Lee as filmdom's top two actors with 1% body fat, is spry and elegant as usual. On the dance floor, he is sublime. And when he sings, he has better phrasing and more sincerity than Bing Crosby. Fred Astaire makes everything he does look effortless.

The supporting cast is excellent. Vera-Ellen nicely complements Fred on and off the dance floor. As Jessie Brown, Vera-Ellen is pretty, understanding, and down to earth, while her excellent dancing is at times exuberant ("Mr. and Mrs. Hoofer at Home" and "Come On, Papa") and at times enchantingly balletic ("Thinking of You"). Red-headed Arlene Dahl is beautiful and classy as actress Eileen Percy, and, as a bonus, she can carry a tune ("I Love You So Much"). The dependable Keenan Wynn is, well, dependable. Gloria de Haven fills in for her mother, who was the first to introduce the song "Who's Sorry Now?", while a young Debbie Reynolds makes her MGM debut as Boop-Boop-a-Doop girl Helen Kane.

Because Kalmar and Ruby got along so well and had no real animosity between them, it was decided to create a subplot to explain the 5 years in which they didn't collaborate. The real reason was that both Kalmar and Ruby were busy with their own different projects, but, of course, that wouldn't wash in filmdom. So, the whole storyline of Kalmar's Broadway play and what Ruby did about it was fabricated. Another fabrication was the running subplot of the title tune, which supposedly gestated for 10 years before becoming a song. In real life, "Three Little Words" was written a lot faster than that and became an instant standard. Another fake scenario was the street scene where Kalmar and Ruby encounter Helen Kane, while hashing out "I Wanna Be Loved By You" on a sidewalk piano. Never happened. Of course, you can't deny the fact that all these made up scenes did make the movie more interesting.

The Special Features include the great and informative 15 minute featurette "Three Little Words: Two Swell Guys," "Roaming Through Michigan," a Fitzpatrick Traveltalk short, the classic cartoon "Ventriloquist Cat," a theatrical trailer, and the audio-only bonus "Paula Stone's Hollywood USA Radio Promo" (wherein she talks with Harry Ruby and Fred Astaire).

Three Little Words is an overlooked musical that stands up really well to the test of time. It is chock full of great songs (some of which you'll recognize, even if you don't know from where). It stars a legendary performer (who couldn't wait to play the role of Bert Kalmar) and a wonderful, enthusiastic supporting cast. It is also unashamedly nostalgic and hokey. What a fun movie!"