Rosie the Riveter (1944)

One of my all time favorites.

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

"Rosie the Riveter" is a cute B-movie that is set during WWII. It stars Jane Frazee as the title character, a young lady who goes to work at a defense plant but has a serious problem finding a place to sleep. This actually was a serious problem during the war, as many small towns boomed--filling with thousands of workers and not enough housing for them all. It's the subject of several comedies of the day, such as "The More the Merrier" as well as this film. Well, Rosie and her friend come up with an interesting solution--share the room with a couple guys. The guys will get it one shift, they will get it the next. However, Rosie's very prim and proper boyfriend would not approve so she spends much of the film hiding it from the guy. Additionally, there is a LOT of tension between the various roommates. How it's all resolved is cute and enjoyable. Just understand...this is not nor was it intended to be anything more than a low-budget comedy with modest pretensions. It does the trick but is not exactly what I'd call a must-see film. Cute and enjoyable.

ROSIE THE RIVETER-- a musical Republic produced in 1943--features one of my favorite singing stars from the war years, Jane Frazee. Yesterday I checked the Paramount Vault page on YouTube for new uploads. Paramount controls the Republic library. And to my great pleasure, ROSIE had just been uploaded. They have done a perfect job with the restoration.The script is well written-- a hilarious romantic comedy set-up with Jane and her girlfriend Vera Vague sharing a room in a boarding house with two single men. The way the writers get around the production code is quite clever!The gals of course wind up battling and falling in love with the guys. Vera's deadpan deliveries are wonderful; there's a lot of witty dialogue from beginning to end; a marvelous supporting cast that includes Maude Eburne and Carl (Alfalfa) Switzer as a teenager. Plus, there's a great scene where the gals have no clothes on and are locked out of the boarding house in the rain and get picked up by police (you have to see it!)..and a rousing finale filmed at an aviation factory. So much to make it enjoyable.

During World War II, the U.S. Government wanted Hollywood to produce movies that would help win the war. It is doubtful that "The Coconuts" director Joseph Santley's "Rosie the Riveter" could have made much of a contribution to morale. This lightweight, 75-minute, black & white, musical comedy about the widespread housing shortage in California deals with two guys and two girls who encounter complications sharing a bedroom with two beds on a rotating basis. When Rosalind "Rosie" Warren (Jane Frazee of "Buck Privates") and Vera Watson (Barbara Jo Allen as Vera Vague of "Melody Ranch")compete for the last room in town with Charlie Doran (Frank Albertson) and Kelly Kennedy (Frank Jenks), landlady Granma Quill(Maude Eburne of "The Vampire Bat" lets them rent the same room on the condition that they occupy it when the others are at work in an aircraft construction factory. The housing shortage constituted a genuine problem during hostilities as other World War II films such as "The More The Merrier" and "Pillow to Post" depicted. Actually, Granma's grand children, Buzz Prouty (Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer of "The War Against Mrs. Hadley") and Mabel Prouty (Louise Erickson of "Meet Miss Bobby Socks")rented the room to both the guys and the gals without informing either their grandmother or their Aunt Stella (Ellen Lowe of "Pilot # 5")about their arrangements. Granma decides that the four can rent the room because they work on different shifts. The guys work the graveyard shift while the gals work the daylight shift. Eventually, Charlie and Rosier become romantically involved through a series of misadventures. Rosier runs into trouble when her boyfriend, Wayne Calhoun (Frank Fenton of "Minesweeper"), inquires into her living arrangements. He brings over a framed painting to hang in her bedroom and the girls scramble to clear Charlie and Kelly out of the room before the jealous Wayne learns about their secret.Interestingly, since the government prohibited Hollywood from showing anything that would furnish the enemy with information, "Rosie the Riveter" doesn't show anything that would be considered confidential. There are some brief scenes of Rosie and Vera wielding a rivet gun on the tail section of a bomber. Virtually everything in "Rosie the Riveter" is forgettable despite its attractive and sympathetic cast. Most of the action transpires either in the bedroom or at a police station. The high point of the hilarity occurs when the two girls come home in the rain from a dance and realize that they cannot get out in the downpour with their fur coats on without ruining them. Instead, they strip down to the slips and try to get in, only to discover that they have been not only locked up but also have locked their house keys in the car. Predictably, one of the guys slips into a uniform for the concluding scene. As a celebration of the patriot spirit of women in the workforce during World War II, "Rosie the Riveter" qualifies as trivial.

This is a breezy musical about the housing shortage in wartime America, circa 1944. As usual Jane Frazee is a delight to watch and listen to and here she is paired with the female Jerry Colonna, Vera Vague as the work/roommate. Rosie and her pal squabble with two guys over the only remaining boardinghouse room in town and Rosie, after "working overtime on a B-19" down at the plane factory, eventually warms up to Frank Albertson (not your typical young juvenile lead, this was wartime after all) and everything works out for the big finale sung at the work site. Three or four nice tunes and some light comedy (a couple of very funny moments - all the teenagers seem to be a lot more mature about their romantic relationships than the adults and they stay up all night doing the conga!)make this an easy hour to pass.