Too Many Girls (1940)

TOO MANY GIRLS (1940)

By Ralph Santini – ***

Before the extremely popular and successful landmark sitcom “I Love Lucy” stormed audiences on television, the stars who portray Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, actually met each other on the set of this underrated rare musical gem from 1940 “Too Many Girls”. That’s right the real life married couple met with each other during the filming of this movie and I like it very much. The credits noticeably begin with Van Johnson in the bottom center of an all-male chorus singing a really pleasant song called “Heroes Of The Fall”. After all this was his first film in his long career, as well Desi Arnaz himself and a favorite of Preston Sturges fandom, Eddie Bracken. The cast also includes a barely teenaged Ann Miller, the man who portrays Charles Foster Kane’s uneducated but concerned father in Citizen Kane, Harry Shannon and the protagonist himself is portrayed by future Sci-Fi icon Richard Carlson.

The film story is centered towards Carlson’s character Clint Kelly where he works with Manuelito (Arnaz) at his aunt’s Inn, The Hunted Stag, where they not only meet with Jojo Jordan (Bracken) and Al Twerlliger (Hal Le Roy in apparently his final theatrical film) but are asked to be hired as bodyguards for the Casey Allied Industries run by Mr. Casey (Shannon) in order to lookout for his daughter Connie (Lucy herself). It turns out that the college where Connie wants to go is the same one her father attended Pottawatomie, where she also has established a romantic contact with an suave Englishman (Douglas Walton). The only catch with this is that Casey has a hands off policy ordering an Anti-Romantic clause and that could result in many zany moments in which that policy can be broken. For instance, the college has a rather mediocre football team and, get this, Manuelito takes advantage on joining the team which eventually encourages the rests of his friends to all fall in.

This film contains a delightful collection of pleasant music composed by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. I have two favorites in this musical, one is “'Cause We Got Cake” performed especially by the cute Frances Langford with a chorus. I think the song was really hip enough for 1940 standards as the decade was beginning to embrace the Jitterbug years before Rock And Roll began to dominate the charts in the early to mid-1950s. My other favorite song in this film is Spic n’ Spanish with dances exquisitely performed by Desi Arnaz and sexy Ann Miller. This was a really good time where Latin music was hot and it pleased American audiences who embraced the genre in the beginning of the decade. In fact the film concludes with another joyous Latin moment which consists of a great Conga line which I’m sure my late Cuban grandmother would have enjoyed intensely.

Although there are statements that Lucille Ball could sing, RKO made an unexplained decision to have Trudy Erwin dub her singing in both songs her character of Connie uses which consist of both“You're Nearer” and “I Didn't Know What Time It Was”. I have never heard Lucille Ball’s voice in real life so I can’t discuss what I think of this. What I do know is that after this movie was finished Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz got married a month after “Too Many Girls” was released. My point for this film is that it contains an interesting storyline regarding four college boys acting as bodyguards to a young lady who wants a carefree life and exciting songs written by Rodgers and Hart. It’s one of the better campus musicals of this era that certainly needs better attention. After all it’s this movie that made the cultural phenomenon of “I Love Lucy” possible, thanks to Lucy and Desi meeting each other and quickly getting married, and every sitcom it followed through many generations.