SYNOPSICS
Starlift (1951) is a English,French movie. Roy Del Ruth has directed this movie. Doris Day,Gordon MacRae,Virginia Mayo,Gene Nelson are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1951. Starlift (1951) is considered one of the best Musical movie in India and around the world.
Air Force fliers Rick Williams and Mike Nolan attempt to meet film star Nell Wayne, with whom Rick shares a hometown but not much else. Fellow film stars Doris Day and Ruth Roman mistakenly believe Rick to be very close to Nell and arrange for him to meet her. The pair begin to form a match, especially after Nell, Doris, and Ruth arrange for Hollywood stars to perform for G.I.s in transit to and from the Korean War, at Travis Air Base. But Nell thinks Rick is getting ready to ship out to the war, when in reality, he and Mike ferry troops part of the way then return to Travis Air Base with returning soldiers. Nell is furious with Rick for letting her believe he was headed to a war zone, especially because the press has made a huge story of their romance. Meantime, a new program, Operation Starlift, has been set in place by the Air Force and the Hollywood studios, whereby stars are flown to San Francisco to perform for the outbound and inbound troops. Movie stars such as Randolph Scott,...
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Starlift (1951) Reviews
More of a variety show than a movie; interesting to fans!
As a movie this barely rates a 4 but for movie fans of the 1940s period, it's almost a must-see and rates a 9 as a variety show! I was drawn to watch this by the presence of Richard (Captain Midnight) Webb who plays the Colonel in charge of the event. What surprised me was the stunning performance of Doris Day. Outside of 'Calamity Jane', I've never seen her put over a song better than she does here. Randolph Scott is memorable as well, even if he doesn't see much screen time. It's been a while since I saw the movie but I was almost sure Humphrey Bogart put in an appearance. With so many familiar faces, it's hard to keep track. If it ever turns up on a TV station near you, be sure to catch the Doris Day sequence, if nothing else!
The Stars Come To Travis
Starlift is a pleasant and interesting throwback to those all star musical pictures that every studio was putting out during the World War II years. When you've got such stars as Gary Cooper, James Cagney, Doris Day, Gordon MacRae, and Randolph Scott, etc., in the film and with such people as the Gershwin Brothers, Cole Porter, Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn supplying the music, it's an easy to take film. And the plot isn't even in the way. What plot there is involves two Air Force enlisted men, Dick Wesson and Ron Hagerthy, trying to meet Warner Brothers starlet Janice Rule using as a gimmick the fact that both come from Youngstown, Ohio and Hagerthy's father was Rule's dentist as well as half of the town's. The scheme works too well as Louella Parsons is soon putting them as an item in her column. Yes, Louella's in the film as well. She must have liked Warner Brothers or Jack Warner catered to her more than the other studio bosses because she also used this studio to publicize her Hollywood Hotel radio program back in the day. But the rest of the plot also touched on the real life efforts of Ruth Roman also playing herself to get her studio and others to do shows at the Air Force bases for the servicemen and women going to Korea. Some of the names I've mentioned and others sing and perform in a show at Travis Air Force Base where a lot of this film was shot. One specialty number was shot for the talents of Phil Harris who sing/narrates a ballad Look Out Stranger, I'm A Texas Ranger aided and assisted by Virginia Gibson, Frank Lovejoy and Gary Cooper. Yup, Cooper looked like he was having a great old time kidding his image. This is the oldest of clichés when you say they don't make them like this any more, but they really don't because you don't have a studio system that has all this talent under contract. That's one thing about the demise of the old studio system we can mourn.
Good, but...
If you want to see all of the Warner Stars from 1950 - 1955, they're all here. It's fun to see so many famous faces like Doris Day and Gordon MacRae, but there is no real plot to this movie. Troops are sad, stars cheer them up, troops are happy. There are some cute tunes and it's actually a lot of fun to see just how many stars they can cram into this film - but only a few of them stick around for the whole movie. MGM did it so much better in the 40s with movies like TILL THE CLOUDS ROLL BY and THOUSANDS CHEER. Those films at least had a plot, with stars giving cameos - this seems to be a bad imitation of those films. It's still a worthwhile film, but don't spend an arm and a leg trying to find it, it's not THAT great.
Doris Day is 'S Wonderful...not so the rest of "Starlift"
Actress Ruth Roman's real-life philanthropic gesture to help entertain U.S. troops arriving from and leaving for Korea at an air base near San Francisco jump-started this all-star Warner Bros. salute to patriotism and song. Several celebrities make guest appearances while a love-hate romance develops between a budding starlet and a painfully green and skinny Air Force corporal (Ron Hagerthy, who looks like he should be delivering newspapers from his bicycle). Seems the corporal has fooled the actress into thinking he's off to battle when actually he's part of an airplane carrier crew, flying to and from Honolulu (one would think she'd be overjoyed he was relatively out of harm's way, but instead she acts just like most childish females in 1950s movies). Doris Day is around for the first 30 minutes, and her distinct laugh and plucky song numbers are most pleasant. Roman is also here, looking glamorous, while James Cagney pokes fun at his screen persona and Gordon MacRae sings in his handsome baritone. Jane Wyman sings, too, in a hospital bedside reprise following Doris Day's lead, causing one to wonder, "Did they run out of sets?" For undemanding viewers, an interesting flashback to another time and place. Still, the low-rent production and just-adequate technical aspects render "Starlift" strictly a second-biller. *1/2 from ****
Let's give the boys a show!
STARLIFT is a pleasant film and no more. It's relative obscurity (despite a cast of cameo appearing stars from Warner Brothers) is odd until you realize it deals with the wrong war. Only half-a-dozen years before movies like THANK YOUR LUCKY STARS and STAGE-DOOR CANTEEN had been shown to appreciative audiences in the armed forces and in the country. But they dealt with the war experience in World War II. That national experience was incredibly unifying. Korea was a different story. While the bulk of Americans were fully supportive of the boys and girls in Korea, the early 1950s had a split in America due to McCarthyism. If the returning Vets from Vietnam twenty years further on resented the anger misdirected at them, at least the issue of what they were up to (especially after the My Lai Massacre) kept the public aware of them. Eventually the public calmed down and put up the Vietnam Wall Memorial in Washington. But the Korean War Memorial is another matter. Korea, once the truce was signed, was quickly buried by the country, watching the antics of Senator Joe McCarthy. Think how many films were created to honor the war: PORK CHOP HILL, THE BRIDGES AT TOKO RI, and...yeah how many more can you think of, until say M.A.S.H. in 1970? And that film is really better recalled because of the television series of the same name. So STARLIFT has not had the exposure that say STAGE DOOR CANTEEN did. It's the same idea, if the story line is a bit different. Two G.I.s (Ron Haggerthy and Dick Wesson) are in Hollywood and Wesson (playing his normal easy going conniver) manages to convince Doris Day and Ruth Roman that Haggerthy is a close boy-friend of starlet Janice Rule. They entertain the two (in the course of which they introduce them to Gordon McRae and Jimmy Cagney - the latter redoes some of his dialog from WHITE HEAT), and then Rule shows up. She really barely recalls Haggerthy (he was the son of her dentist in Youngstown, Ohio, and her father was the local sweetshop owner). However, due to Wesson's conniving patter, the women are convinced that they are headed for Korea on their next mission. So they accompany the boys back to Travis Air Force Base, and see how their appearance raises the morale of the men there. Haggerthy and Wesson eventually take off on their mission (helping to fly a transport to Hawaii to drop the men off there who are headed to Korea. In the meantime Roman and Rule get the idea of returning with other stars to entertain the men. The plot (such as it is) is how Louella Parson hears of the relations between Haggerthy and Rule, blowing it into a romance. Potentially it would be a true romance, but Rule discovers that Haggerthy is only ferrying troops between California and Hawaii, and he thinks she is using him for publicity. The plot is whether they overcome these misunderstandings. It is the performances that keep our attention: Doris Day singing several songs like "S'wonderful", and others singing (including Jane Wyman - a reminder that she actually did duets with Bing Crosby in some movies). McRae and Virginia Mayo and Barry Nelson do some nice numbers, Nelson as an MP singing "It's Magic" while imagining his perfect girl (Ms Rule again). Proper use was made of Phil Harris, first getting properly trounced by a bunch of G.I.'s in a Gin Rummy game (at only a penny a point - he ends up losing $700.00!), and then as the singer narrator of a "western number" spoof with Gary Cooper and Frank Lovejoy (a rarity for Lovejoy, who almost never was in a comic piece of business). Phil also gets in a crack about "Mr. Benny" and even one about "Alice". Randolph Scott does as a temporary master of ceremonies (when Harris is playing cards). Also the Warner's answer to Martin and Lewis (which never worked) of (Peter) Marshall and (Tommy) Noonan shows them in a passable bit of business about a cook who gets drunk trying to show how to bake a cake (call for Red Skelton's "Guzzler's Gin" which was shorter and funnier). It is a decent escapist film, and a reminder of what we have to give our men and women in uniform to help them face impossible or dangerous situations for all of us.