With little plot, the movie featured Paramount Studio contract players such as Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour, Veronica Lake, Paulette Goddard, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Dick Powell and more. The movie was a “feel good” musical intended to entertain troops. Susan Sackett in Hollywood Sings! An Inside Look at Sixty Years of Academy Award-Nominated Songs says, “In a routine that centered mostly around a dance number performed by ballerina Vera Zorina (choreographed by her then-husband, the legendary George Balanchine) Johnston introduced the song.” This gem of a song, “That Old Black Magic,” written by composer Harold Arlen and lyricist Johnny Mercer for the 1942 film Star-Spangled Rhythm was played behind the opening credits and sung by relative unknown Johnny Johnston. “Arlen’s music is rife with repeated notes and octave drops, and Mercer’s phrasing makes the lyric mime the musical motion.”
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