ITS ALL CAME TRUE (1940)

 

 

THE  1940  musical/gangster comedy IT ALL CAME TRUE  featuring Ann Sheridan with Humphrey Bogart just on the cusp of  stardom is eclectic piece of  film making.  The picture also features Jeffrey Lynn is a departure from his regular ‘Good guy” roles.

It came from time when musicals were huge and this effort tried to duplicate what what happening at MGM so I watched with  trepidation.    While cliches abound in entertainment of  this sort IT ALL CAME TRUE offered some genuinely  funny moments one of which featured Una O Conner feeding Bogart’s  gangster character in bed. One can imagine Mr Bogart loathing this role yet the  studios made him do this or perhaps he didn’t and had a good laugh.

The story concerns a gangster  Grasselli/Chips Maguire played by you know by now who needs to lay low.  Jeffrey Lynne in a  slight change of pace from his ‘Good Guy/attorney” roles  plays Tommy Taylor who has been working with Maguire.    Taylor agrees reluctantly agrees  due to blackmail to let Maguire stay at his ancestral boarding house home that he hasn’t been to in five years.

The boarding house  features among those eccentric characters  from Jesse Busley as Nora Taylor , Za Su Pitts as Miss Flint  who is  terrorized by Men following her home that she actually enjoys yet too shy to say. Una O Conner does her best as the cynical cook that actually runs the place plus later one you get to see her ‘glammed’ in a good way up for a party scene.  The best if  that  is possible is Felix Bressart as monocled very  formal  THE GREAT BOLDINI who performs magic tricks dressed as  sort of Roman soldier with the add of  trained poodle.

Anne Sheridan plays Sarah Jane Ryan who is a childhood friend of Tommy Taylor and also a boarder.   Sarah and Tommy renew acquaintances and find that have mutual interest and talent for music.  I actually wonder if  it is  Anne Sheridan’s real voice in the sequence.  They make plans to audition as a  duo

Chip Maguire has  ‘eyes” for Sarah that he  views in house talant show featuring the boarders.  When  he  sees  Sarah perform with Timmy he gets the idea to turn the boarding house into an exclusive club that the will manage because  he is bored.

The picture has  some very different musical numbers especially one by  The Elderbloom Chorus features older females  singing this very staid song that launches into the swinging number complete with dancing

The  story again isn’t  important in a picture of this  type as it was meant to fill the screen with song and  dance and that it does in a  novel way.   Humphrey Bogart even does  a  very brief little dance and  quick few lyrics from a song.   This was also clearly a vehicle for  Anne Sheridan to sing, to dance  and  be  the  ‘Oomph Girl’ with that red hair and  wardrobe.

IT ALL CAME TRUE was Directed by Lewis  Seiler and  Producer Mark Hellinger who was later to later help  produce the  brilliant Cagney gangster  picture  THE ROARING TWENTIES.   See Bogart do his best  with a  role he  could walk through.  See Anne Sheridan dazzle as  singer along with  some  good  comedy.  Isn’t that was  the style of  film making is  supposed  to do and this does it  in such a  different way.  Good  fun