The Great Morgan

Frank Morgan, the professional bumbler, decides he's not getting the respect (and money) he deserves at "the studio," so he calls studio boss "KF" -- Leon Ames -- and demands the job of producing a picture. His proposition is, surprisingly, accepted, and after weeks of Morgan's confused shooting, and going ever farther behind schedule and over budget, KF demands to see the result. Disgusted with the professional editor's inability to make any sense from the available footage, Morgan fires him and cuts and splices the film himself -- after, predictably, dumping the contents of the film storage shelves on the cutting room floor.

In the projection room, the resulting product, of course, turns out to be a disaster. (Everything about this movie and the film-within-the-film is predictable, but who cares?) Interspersed with a bit of inane "original footage" -- some of it, naturally, upside down -- Frank has picked up pieces of other MGM productions, which are presented complete and straight: A "Donkey Serenade" (not Allan Jones'}; a neat Elinor Powell dance sequence; songs by Virginia O'Brien with an unbilled Tommy Dorsey and Band, and by the King Sisters; and two MGM shorts complete with title, credit, and "The End" cards -- the familiar John Nesbitt Passing Parade "Our Old Car," and a "new" (to me and IMDb) Pete Smith Specialty on professional "Badminton," that's worth the price of admission.

A very entertaining little movie, especially if you like Morgan and the films of the '40s. I do.