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Reviews
Mister Big (1943)
Awesome fun
My copy of this is so murky it's like looking through the mists of time, but the movie itself is as fun now as it was in 1943. It was a star-maker for Donald O'Connor, and it's easy to see why - he's hilarious, adorable, and already shows the crisp, weightless precision in his dancing that later became his trademark.
Peggy Ryan (like a young Lucille Ball!) and Gloria Jean (endearingly beautiful and with a voice to die for) are both at their best, and Louis DaPron, head choreographer at Universal, did right by the Jivin' Jacks and Jills, who are thrilling to watch. Some even get small acting parts, but it's their acrobatic dancing that astounds, then and now.
As another reviewer commented, there is a routine in blackface, and that is always jarring for modern audiences, me included. The later sequence where the black children sing in a hayloft could (as the earlier reviewer suggested) be seen as demeaning, or it could be seen as the kids being an angelic choir (I think more the intent). I doubt that Universal gave it a lot of deep thought either way... it was intended as a means of separating on stage two separate 'acts', the choir from the dancers.
There's not too much time wasted on plot here, but what little there is is friskied-up by off-the-cuffs and a general lack of formality. According to Peggy Ryan, the filming took eight days. The result is a film with a lively spontaneity that would only have been muted with further polishing.