Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6686 in VHS
• Released on: 1999-02-23
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Formats: Black & White, Closed-captioned, NTSC
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 93 minutes

Customer Reviews

Novel conglomeration of talent and entertainment.
Variety Girl is one of those movies with a plot that's little more than an excuse to showcase a bunch of stars, mostly in small cameo roles.

The story is based on the premise that the charitable Variety Club started when some Hollywood producers adopted a baby girl, Catherine Brown, in 1928 and Catherine, now grown (Mary Hatcher), is seeking fame in Hollywood. She picks a screen name, Amber La Vonne, but her self-centered room mate (Olga San Juan) steals it, causing confusion when a talent scout for Paramount (DeForest Kelley) is sent to offer her an audition and takes the room mate by mistake. This misunderstanding is milked for comedy throughout most of the movie as both she and the room mate show up for auditions, screen tests, etc., bumping into dozens of stars along the way, including Gary Cooper, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Robert Preston, Barry Fitzgerald, Patrick Knowles, Cecil B. Demille, Virginia Field, and many, many others, some uncredited such as George Reeves and Johnny Coy.

The are a number of entertaining sequences such as Catherine singing with Spike Jones and his band and performing voice-overs for a George Pal Puppetoon called Romeow and Juliecat, a screen test that William Bendix deliberately makes difficult, etc.
A bunch more stars perform in the Variety Show at the end, which includes Alan Ladd, Pearl Bailey, and Dorothy Lamour singing, as well as appearances by William Demarest, Burt Lancaster, Lisabeth Scott, Ray Milland, Paulette Goddard, William Holden, Veronica Lake, McDonald Carey, and others.

Interestingly, among all these stars, DeForest Kelley has the male leading role, though he wouldn't really become famous until he played Dr. McCoy on Star Trek 2 decades later.

I'm giving the film 5 stars because of the novelty of all the talent showcased here - it's rare to find any films with Pearl Bailey singing, Spike Jones' band playing, scenes from a George Pal puppetoon, or all these great stars together on one statge.

Finally it is available!
I have been looking for this movie for more than 30 years. My parents made me go to bed before it was over, and it never played on television again (in at least the next 20 years, I know for sure. The last ten I haven't seen much television. It was a wonderful,lighthearted, funny film packed with the most amazing cast of stars. Thanks for carrying it!

Wonderful musical acts; dull story
It's hard to assign a star value to a movie like this. Lovers of 1940s musical productions will love the variety acts with Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Spike Jones, the acrobats, and even the harmonica band. (Spike's zany production number is written into the story line with wonderful results: the band's soloist has no idea the nature of Spike's band, and is bewildered why the audience is laughing during her singing. The story itself that ties the musical numbers together, however, is silly and deadly dull: "I Love Lucy" type pranks without any of Lucy's endearing charm. Fortunately, there are LOTS of production numbers!