Too Many Girls

1940 "It's knee-deep in gorgeous gals and gaiety!"
5.9| 1h25m| NR| en| More Info
Released: 08 October 1940 Released
Producted By: RKO Radio Pictures
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

Mr. Casey's daughter, Connie, wants to go to Pottawatomie College and without her knowledge, he sends four football players as her bodyguards. The college is in financial trouble and her bodyguards use their salary to help the college. The football players join the college team, and the team becomes one of the best. One of the football players, Clint, falls in love with Connie, but when she discovers he is her bodyguard, she decides to go back East. The bodyguards follow her, leaving the team in the lurch.

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Reviews

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.
Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.
Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.
Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
dimplet Too Many Girls may have been the best thing to happen to Lucille Ball and Van Johnson. Ball looked at this RKO train wreck and undoubtedly thought, "I could do better." Van Johnson thought, "Gee, am I lucky I only had one line!"Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz (for those born yesterday) went on to found Desilu, which produced "I Love Lucy," as well as the Andy Griffith Show, the Dick Van Dyke Show, I Spy, Mission Impossible, etc., etc. In the ultimate irony, Desilu bought the RKO Pictures movie production properties and facilities, including the famous back lot Forty Acres. They reused the lot for this movie to make Star Trek episodes. And it all started with Too Many Girls. But in Too Many Girls there is nothing to see: The music is lousy, the dancing jerky and exaggerated, the jokes so lame as to be virtually nonexistent, the acting a hodgepodge of monotone and exaggeration, the plot toilet paper thin. Don't believe a musical can be offensively painful? What can you say when "Spic and Spanish" (a dual reference to a floor cleaning product and an offensive term for Hispanic) is the most entertaining song? (ANYTHING is better than "Potawatomine.") There is one enduring classic, "I Didn't Know What Time it Was," which was mutilated by Richard Carlson, and promptly lacerated by Eddie Bracken with his corny repetition. The foundation of the "plot" is that four star football players are hired as body guards (abadoning college at Princeton, Yale and Harvard) to report back to Dad on Lucille's love life. So she is dating an older man (Beverly Waverly) literally under the noses of the body guards, yet there is no report back, no consequences, no development and no explanation of what their relationship is, aside from the fact that he is the real reason she chose to attend Potawatomie. Can those college boys spell "incompetence"?The rest of the story consists of following Ball around, snippets of guys chasing a football, guys chasing girls, and enormous, pointless dance numbers. Hey, anyone find a joke laying around? Oh, right, "Texas Gentile." I think the funniest line was how Potawatomie only beat Columbia by 4 points (Rodgers and Hart were Columbia alumni). Was that before or after the boys joined?I was curious to see Ann Miller and Frances Langford. Langford's acting was forgettably dull, while Miller's was way, way, way over the top in corny artificialness (toward the end someone apparently told Miller she was supposed to be Hispanic, so she adopts a Mexican accent). Ball's acting was adequate for a B movie (this ain't Gone With The Wind); in hindsight, she might have saved the movie with a comedic performance. Desi was the only guy in the movie with any charisma (aside from Van Johnson, who glowed in the dark even as an extra). Harry Shannon, the Dad, turned in a performance so wooden they should have sent for a doctor to check his pulse. Why did RKO make this movie? It wasn't totally unfamiliar with musicals, having made the iconic Top Hat. But RKO wasn't MGM, whose assembly line wizards could turn a telephone book into a musical extravaganza. Someone had departed with the recipe for the secret sauce.This movie had no shortage of talent, it just didn't tap it. Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's long and prolific collaboration was nearing an end, with Hart's death in 1943. Rodgers would team up with Oscar Hammerstein II and produce Oklahoma! in 1943, and write State Fair for the screen in 1945. And you may have heard of their Sound of Music. George Abbott would go on to direct two musicals, Damn Yankees and Pajama Game, that are enjoyable. Either he didn't know what he was doing in 1940 or RKO didn't give him the time and resources. The most remarkable thing about Too Many Girls is that it didn't kill his career. I guess a director doesn't have to go down with the ship.Poster: aimless-46 seems to have hit the nail on the head in his earlier review: RKO had a bunch of actors and staff on salary with nothing to do, plus an option on the Broadway play. Apparently they figured they had nothing to lose, provided they didn't spend too much money. Time to knock out a B musical! What have we got to lose?But if this movie had been a financial and artistic success, RKO might not have sold out to Desilu, Lucille Ball might have continued as a serious actress and not become "Lucy," and Desi might have had a career as a dashing leading man. Instead, "Too Many Girls" became perhaps the most influential bomb in movie history. As Zero Mostel says during a toast in "The Producers": "Here's to failure!"
Hollycon1 This film was made in 1940. We were just about to go to War with Japan & people had just barely survived the Great Depression. Most people wanted fun escapist movies. The music is great! Of course it's full of fluff. The audience preferred it that way! Ask your grandparents, they'll tell you what life was like in 1940. My grandmother had a job seating people at the Admiral theater in Seattle, Wa. Actually West Seattle, which at the time was considered a separate area from Seattle. She told us that the customers loved Musicals and Westerns. The perfect escape for a Saturday afternoon. The theater's were full for every show and only cost a dime. I think if we were to quit picking apart these films and just enjoy them for the the times they were created, we could learn a lot about life in the 40's. Try to see what we have in common with that era instead of looking for the differences. We are much too cynical and if we can't enjoy a silly film like Too many Girls, we haven't come as far as we think we have. Submitted by Little Blue
wes-connors Lucille Ball (as Connie) is going to college. Her wealthy father is afraid she'll get into trouble, so he hires four football players to be her bodyguards. Not a very bright man, obviously! The bodyguards are: Desi Arnaz (as Manuelito), Eddie Bracken (as Jojo), Richard Carlson (as Clint), and Hal LeRoy (as Al). Ann Miller and Frances Langford are around to dance and sing.It's a fair musical, with an "Indian" subplot (Huh?), and budget problems. You should know that Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz are not paired up in (on-screen, anyway) this film (Ms. Ball is partnered with Mr. Carlson). This is a routinely presented film, with a few highlights. Unfortunately Mr. Le Roy and Ms. Miller do not have a real dance off/team-up together. Mr. Arnaz steals the show from his future wife with a charming performance - look for the scene where he plays "guess the lipstick"! ***** Too Many Girls (10/8/40) George Abbott ~ Lucille Ball, Richard Carlson, Desi Arnaz, Ann Miller
fluteboo A cast of thousands--extra dancers and singers. George Abbott probably had 18 dancers in the Broadway version, so here he got about 180. Some of these numbers are well worth the watch. Don't miss the surreal finale with Desi Arnaz on conga (and he's supposed to be a rich Argentinean). Lucille Ball is shot through gauze even though she's quite young, but who cares, she's luminescent in this silly plot. This is the rare Hollywood film taking place on a college campus where not a single professor is evident, save a quick visual joke.The hard-to-watch scenes involved handsome Richard Carlson who acts like a sap in a painfully sappy way. No wonder he was unable to continue his career after WWII. But oh, that Eddie Bracken, Hal Le Roy, and the always magnificent Anne Miller. Frances Langford shows how that band experience produced fabulous singers.Really, you'll be screaming in pain, choking your popcorn out in laughter, and popping your eyes over the over-the-top Busby-you-can-be-outdone dance numbers. And it has one of the best Rodgers and Hart songs ever, "I Never Knew What Time it Was," sung man to woman, and then, yes, man to man. Postmodern viewers will find some unintended gay laughs.So show it to your best friends, the only ones who'll understand and not throw a pillow at you.