Lullaby of Broadway (1951)

(On Cable TV, March 2021) Oops! Earlier today, I referred to I’ll See You in My Dreams as Doris Day’s most musicalesque musical even as I acknowledged not seeing all of her movies, and I should have kept that in mind because Lullaby of Broadway (from the same year) is the most musicalest of her musicals. It certainly fits under the archetype of the Broadway backstage musical, as characters spend the movie putting together a show, rehearsing musical numbers and the entire film climaxing at the successful premiere. Day herself plays a singer who gets into complications in-between her mom’s deteriorating medical attention, attention from an older man (S. Z. Sakall, in a typically likable performance) being misunderstood by her would-be lover and the older man’s wife, and the making of the show itself. The songs themselves are catchy and the film has a charming quality that is in-line with other musicals of the period. Lullaby of Broadway is not exactly earth-shattering, but it works and it does provide a link between the classic musicals and Day’s career.