Musical Carradine

 

 (imdb)

DOWN MISSOURI WAY-1946-Innocuous, low budget musical about a professor of agriculture (Martha O'Driscoll; HOUSE OF DRACULA the year before) and her educated mule (Shirley playing herself) and a film company using her land for a production. Mostly forgettable except for John Carradine as Thorny Dunning, the movie within a movie's director giving a deliberately hammy performance (he seems to be channeling John Barrymore). The professor and the movie's producer Burton (William Wright) fall in love. Singing star Gloria (Renee Godfrey) is jealous. 

The songs seem abnormally long in PRC production directed by Josef Berne and produced by Sam Sherman. Also with Roscoe Karns, Will Wright and Eddie Craven. Now forgotten leading man Wright was once touted as “World War 2's answer to Clark Gable”.

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