My Favorite Spy (1942)

(On Cable TV, June 2021) Coming from the middle of the short, curious and still enjoyable film career of bandleader Kay Kyser, My Favorite Spy tries to jam his affable professorial persona into an espionage comedy… and generally succeeds. “Contrived” doesn’t start to describe the plotting circumlocutions that the film sets in motion in order to showcase Kyser’s talents in a spy movie, but it’s so outlandish that it works. Other things that work: Jane Wyman as a romantic interest, the very cute Ellen Drew, Ish Kabbible in a short comic appearance, a few band numbers, by-the-numbers suspense and, most of all, nebbish Kyser as a counter-spy. He’s not an ideal lead (too soft-spoken to deliver punchlines, too stiff for physical comedy), but that in itself becomes a bit of an endearing joke. I wouldn’t recommend this film to Kyser neophytes — he’s better introduced in other films, and much of My Favorite Spy’s fun is a complex interplay between the man propped up to become a movie star versus his undeniable talents as bandleader. If you’re a Kyser fan, though, this is one of his best films — RKO was clearly trying to make him a star, and the narrative is better than many of his other films.