Stage Door Canteen

[Gothampc]

Posted: 4/25/15 at 11:29pm

I recently watched Stage Door Canteen (I got mixed up because I wanted to watch Hollywood Canteen).

But what an interesting, and yet boring, movie.

Where else can you see Gracie Fields sing "The Lord's Prayer" before Gypsy Rose Lee does a strip?  And a young Ethel Merman before she even thought about playing Gypsy's mother?

It's interesting to see all those theater people and a great time capsule, everyone from Ray Bolger to Tallulah Bankhead to Helen Hayes.  It's funny because in the beginning Katherine Cornell does a scene from Romeo & Juliet and somebody must have thought, "Forget that" because all the other non-musical performers just stand around propping up the scenery.  Poor Helen Hayes, the first lady of theater, gets about 30 seconds of screen time.

I realize it's more of a showcase movie where they try to squeeze in a plot, but what a tedious plot.  And the ending is a huge letdown.  It's kind of like they took the main writer off the film about 3/4 of the way through and somebody just said, "Oh the heck with it."