Want to recommend a couple of obscure oldies I saw over the weekend.
Just the cast list of We're Not Dressing promises '30s style delight. A spoiled heiress (Carole Lombard) goes on a South Seas cruise with her heavy-drinking Uncle Hubert (Leon Errol), her friend Edith (Ethel Merman), and two Russian princes (Ray Milland and Jay Henry). The princes are competing for the heiress's hand, and Edith will be more than happy to take whoever's left, even though she's engaged to Uncle Hubert. The party (especially the heiress) decides to have a little fun at the expense of one of the crew (Bing Crosby), whose duties include caring for the heiress's pet bear. The ship sinks, and the cast ends up on an island, uninhabited except for a researching naturalist and his wife (George Burns and Gracie Allen).
OK, it has some weaknesses. Animal lovers aren't going to be thrilled with some of the stunts the bear has to go through. And Merman looks a little too much like Bette Midler for comfort. But all in all, a delightful musical comedy for a summer Sunday afternoon. No classic songs here, but Merman and Errol perform the daylights out of "It's an Old Spanish Custom." And Crosby seems to break out into song every five minutes. The comedy is ably handled, too -- Allen's explanation of her moose trap must be seen to be appreciated.
The other is a lesser-known Katharine Hepburn, Spitfire. Hepburn plays a poor Ozark mountaineer who specializes in praying for people (think faith healing in the literal sense of the term) when she isn't insulting everyone in sight. She crosses the paths of two engineers (Robert Young and Ralph Bellamy) who are overseeing the building of a dam. The faith healer kidnaps a sick child so she can make it well, and the engineers have to defend her against some very unhappy local residents.
OK, there isn't a whole lot of plot to this. And most of the local residents are caricatured to the point that would embarrass the creator of L'il Abner. But Hepburn saves this movie with her performance. She plays the faith healer with such sincerity that, dammit, the movie works despite itself.