November 21 movie: Ship Ahoy. This was a wacky comedy about Nazi spies starring Eleanor Powell and Red Skelton. Normally I would go to great lengths to avoid a movie one could describe with the words "wacky," "Red Skelton" and "Nazis." But Eleanor Powell plays a singer with the Tommy Dorsey orchestra, which meant that Dorsey, his band, and Frank Sinatra are in it. Sinatra gets two songs and no lines, but they were great songs. I hadn't heard one of the songs before ("Poor You") but I'm going to look for it.
Also the plot, while stupid, was fun. Powell gets to tap dance a message in morse code; that was cool. Bert Lahr as Skelton's sidekick plays basically the same character as the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz. Minus the tail of course. And Dorsey gets a few lines, in which he overwhelms the room with his utter coolness, daddy-o.
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