Hullabaloo (1940)

(On Cable TV, November 2020) I’ll admit it: I got suckered into watching Hullabaloo through a deceptive logline. It turns out that while “A radio star creates a national panic when he announces a Martian invasion” is part of the film’s plot, it’s nowhere near all of it. The film was also billed as a drama (probably thinking about the obvious inspiration of Orson Wells’ War of the Worlds broadcast), whereas it’s much closer to a musical comedy than anything else. Much of the show actually revolves around an eccentric radio personality (played with appropriate panache by Frank Morgan) desperately trying to stay relevant in a changing marketplace. He’s skilled at celebrity impressions (which are really the real people, dubbed over his voice), leading to an alien-invasion broadcast that’s a bit too successful for his own good—but there’s another half of the film to go at that point. The focus then shifts to his daughters from three different marriages, and we understand that he’s looking out for three alimony payments as his motivation… and that drives the rest of the film. It all ends suitably well, especially when his older daughter’s new beau takes up some of the most level-headed decisions. As usual, the fun of films like Hullabaloo is more in the historical details, small jokes and bit performances—I was really happy to see one of my favourite bit players for the era, Virginia O’Brien, have two small numbers singing her usual deadpan version of songs that had just been sung seriously by conventional performers. While I was deceived by Hullabaloo’s TV Guide description, I’m really happy with what I ended up watching in the end.