Sing and Like It (1934)

(On Cable TV, June 2021) As a mildly amusing showbiz comedy from the Pre-Code era, Sing and Like It doesn’t have much of a premise in mind — almost all of it revolves around its protagonist (played by the distinctive Zasu Pitts) and her inability to sing, even as events conspire to make her the star of a Broadway show. Organized crime plays an important part in the plotting, but all she really wants to do, in the end, is to go back to her farmer husband. Most of the jokes have the characters riffing on her awfulness, and yet despite everything her sole number “Dear Mother” becomes a bit of an earworm by the end of the film. Amiable throughout, Sing and Like It does get funnier as it goes on, all the way to a theatrical climax and a happy ending. The interplay between criminal thugs trying to make their way in Broadway society is amusing, and the Pre-Code nature means that a few subtle jokes with violent subtext are more audacious than what you’d see in movies for the next thirty years. As an unlikely Pitts fan, I was thoroughly satisfied here — it’s one of her biggest and best roles as a comedienne, and it’s firmly set within a film that has zingers going all around. Sing and Like It isn’t a particularly well-known film, but looking around for reviews, I see that nearly everyone who saw it liked it.