Item: Manhattan Merry-Go-Round
Rating: 5.4
Author: Archivist John

If you have eighty minutes to kill and want to see what happens when 1930s Hollywood throws everything at the wall, yes, watch this. It is a blast for jazz nerds and lovers of weird old cinema, but anyone wanting a sensible plot should probably run away. 🏃‍♂️

The whole thing is basically about a gangster named Tony who takes over a recording studio because he loves music. It is kind of like Radio Bar but with way more guns and a lot more yelling.

Tony is played by Leo Carrillo, who is doing this incredibly thick, cartoonish accent. He basically threatens to murder people if they do not sing pretty for his new record label.

Honestly, the plot is just a very thin clothesline to hang musical acts on. But oh man, what musical acts they got for this thing.

You get Louis Prima blowing his trumpet like his life depends on it. Then suddenly Cab Calloway shows up and just completely steals the entire movie for five minutes.

I swear, Cab Calloway had bones made of rubber. The way he moves his shoulders makes me feel like my own back is out of alignment.

And then, out of absolutely nowhere, Gene Autry rides in on a horse. Right inside the recording studio. 🤠

It makes zero sense, but nobody in the film even questions it. They just let the singing cowboy do his thing while the gangsters nod along.

Speaking of weird appearances, baseball legend Joe DiMaggio is in this too. He has about three lines of dialogue and looks like he would rather be literally anywhere else on Earth.

His acting is so stiff you could use him to prop open a heavy fire door. It is absolutely glorious to watch.

There is a romance subplot too, I guess, between Phil Regan and Ann Dvorak. But I forgot about them the second they stopped talking, to be honest.

Dvorak is always good, but she has almost nothing to do here except look slightly worried in the background.

The pacing is incredibly frantic, almost like the director was worried the audience would fall asleep if someone was not singing or screaming every ten seconds. It has that same chaotic, low-budget energy you find in The Phantom Broadcast, where everyone is just talking over each other.

Some of the transitions are so abrupt it feels like a reel was missing. One second we are in a fancy nightclub, and the next we are staring at a spinning record for way too long.

I think they used the spinning record shot about six different times. Clearly, the budget ran out somewhere in the middle of production.

But that is exactly why I kind of love it. It is messy, it is loud, and it does not care about being high art.

It just wants to show you some cool bands and some funny gangsters. And on that level, it totally works.

"Play it hot, or I blow your head off!" (Basically the entire philosophy of this movie).

If you are looking for a masterpiece, keep moving. But if you want to see Louis Prima and a very awkward baseball player in the same room, this is your goldmine.