For Reel

Director: Gordon Douglas

The wild success of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in the 1940s led to a number of imitators that yielded mixed results. While Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson were brought back to Hollywood for Universal and filmed the memorably frantic Hellzapoppin’, RKO’s short-lived answer in the pair of Wally Brown and Alan Carney was not particularly successful. Girl Rush finds Brown and Carney as a couple of traveling vaudevillians who struggle to make a buck because many of their potential audience members have left to prospect for gold. Eventually, they find their way out west and acquire the enthusiasm of a town that enlists their services… only the predominately male townsfolk are far more interested in the chorus girls than the comedy routines! It’s hard to pinpoint what about the team doesn’t quite work–comparing them to their predecessors, Brown is too incompetent to be the straight man, and Carney isn’t quite loony enough–but regardless, the writing doesn’t do them many favors either. The only saving graces are the delightful Frances Langford and Robert Mitchum in his first role at RKO Pictures, the studio that would launch him to stardom. In the film’s climax, Mitchum dons a drag outfit. True to his cool nature, he seems unfazed by his bonnet and smirks his way through the sequence.