The best Lee Bowman’s music movies

A nightclub dancer makes it big in modeling, leaving her dancer boyfriend behind.

Petty con artists Slicker Smith and Herbie Brown mistakenly join the Army evading the cops. The cop chasing them winds up as their drill instructor. A rich young man and his former working class chauffeur are not only in the same unit, they're vying for a pretty girl who seems attracted to both.

Conceited singer Garry Mitchell refuses to renew his radio contract, so agent Doug Blake decides to find a new personality to replace Garry. In New York, he finds Martha Gibson, a single mother with a great voice. He arranges for her to move to Hollywood, but then has a problem trying to sell her to the show's sponsor. Doug tries every trick he can think of to make Martha a star, and as the two work more closely, he falls in love with her. Complicating matters further is when Martha meets and becomes attracted to Garry.

In Panama, Maggie King meets soldier Skid Johnson on his last day in the army and reluctantly agrees to a date to celebrate. The two become involved in a nightclub brawl which causes Maggie to miss her ship back to the States. Now stranded, she's forced to move in with Skid and his pal Harry. She soon falls in love with Skid. Skid gets a job playing the trumpet at a local club and becomes a big success. Fame and fortune go to his head which eventually destroys his relationship Maggie and his career.

In his last film assignment, portly Walter Connolly fills the title role (in more ways than one) in The Great Victor Herbert. Very little of Herbert's life story is incorporated in the screenplay (a closing title actually apologizes for the film's paucity of cold hard facts); instead, the writers allow the famed composer's works to speak for themselves. In the tradition of one of his own operettas, Herbert spends most of his time patching up the shaky marriage between tenor John Ramsey (Allan Jones) and Louise Hall (Mary Martin). Many of Herbert's most famous compositions are well in evidence, including "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life", "March of the Toys" and "Kiss Me Again", the latter performed con brio by teenaged coloratura Susanna Foster. Evidently, the producers were able to secure the film rights for the Herbert songs, but not for the stage productions in which they appeared, which may explain such bizarre interpolations as having a song from Naughty Marietta.

A famous singer and matinée idol helps a pretty young theater usher in her dreams of becoming a singer, but when her career begins to take off and she becomes engaged to a wealthy young man, he realizes he's fallen for her and plots to break up her impending marriage.