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By
NICK ZEGARAC
One continues to marvel and
wonder why, with so many stellar examples of
musical motion picture entertainment readily
available from the MGM library and yet to be
released on DVD, that Warner Home Video continues
to release such clunky, massively underwhelming
B-flicks to the medium first. A prime example is
Too Many Girls (1940) -- an on-the-fly Rodgers and
Hart programmer about Mr. Harvey Casey (Harry
Shannon) and his shoot from the hip daughter
Consuelo 'Connie' Casey (Lucille Ball). Connie
seeks independence from daddy by way of attending
classes at Pottawatomie College.
However, unbeknownst to our dear heroine, Harvey
sends four butch bodyguards to protect her
chastity (including Richard Carlson, Desi Arnaz,
and Eddie Bracken). Here's the hopelessly hokey
wrinkle: Pottawatomie is about to go under from
debt, leaving the boys to donate their salary and
keep everyone up to their knees in their Chaucer.
The boys also join the football team. In a role
befitting his youth, Carlson as Clint falls for
Connie and is exposed as on the take for her
father. Connie leave Pottawatomie and the
climactic football game goes to hell and a hand
basket. Apart from several solid Rodgers and Hart
standards, there is virtually nothing to recommend
this film. In their attempt to fabricate a Lucy
and Desi box set where actually one never existed,
Warner Home Video has forced an abysmal collegiate
musical on the unsuspecting public. A far better
excursion of the same theme, and also featuring
Lucy to far better effect, is George Abbott's Best
Foot Forward (1943) -- a superior endeavor on all
accounts and grandly entertaining even today…ah,
but without Desi, who is given precious little to
do in Too Many Girls to warrant this film in any
box set except maybe -- Silly Little Nothings:
Vol. One.
Warner's DVD transfer is disappointing as well.
The black and white image has decidedly seen
better days. It's riddled with scratches. Poorly
contrasted and with weak black levels and a
generally soft appearance, there's virtually
nothing to recommend this disc as anything but a
Frisbee. The audio is mono and the one saleable
commodity of this feature. It's nice -- for about
thirty seconds -- to hear Rodgers and Hart's "I
Didn't Know What Time It Was." Bottom line: Forget
it! As if you could do anything but. |
