easy to wed

November 9 movie: Easy to Wed. I haven't written up a movie in ages, but I'm so excited about this movie I'm watching right now that I had to write it up for the movie list.

This is kind of a convoluted story, so bear with me. As you may know, I sometimes cover the Divaville radio show for Christa. And when I do Divaville, she lends me her CD collection, which is so massive I'm always discovering new music in it. Last time I found Maracas, Marimbas & Mambos, a collection of Latin music from Hollywood movies. Which included a version of "Boneca de Piche," one of my favorite Carmen Miranda songs, but sung by Van Johnson and Esther Williams. The liner notes said it was from the movie Easy to Wed, and the song is so freaky cool that Georg and I have been hoping the movie would show up on TCM.

Well this morning I was bumming around, waking up slowly, and turned on TCM, and what do I see? Easy to Wed, only 20 minutes in! Just think, I almost missed it! It turns out to be a remake of Libeled Lady, a movie I love. The acting is a pale imitation of the original, which is no surprise when you conside the relative merits of the casts. I like Van Johnson but he's no William Powell, likewise Keenan Wynn and Spencer Tracy. And asking Esther Williams to fill Myrna Loy's shoes is just cruel. The bright spot among the actors in Easy to Wed is Lucille Ball, in the part originally played by Jean Harlow. You know, I wasn't a big fan of Lucy's TV shows, but her movies are great. In this movie her eyes are so blue that even the whites are blue.

Unfortunately there isn't a lot of music: so far just a couple of songs, and a goofy duck call song with Johnson and Ball. I hope I didn't miss "Boneca de Piche"! On the bright side, there's a scene where Johnson and Williams mack under water. Va va voom.

[Edited to add: "Boneca de Piche" was as wonderfully weird as I had hoped, and so was the end of the movie: Van Johnson gives Keenan Wynn a bloody nose and Lucille Ball gives Van Johnson a bloody nose, while a mariachi band sings "Viva Mexico." Viva!]