Private Buckaroo

When Harry James is drafted, the rest of the band joins up in this sweet little Universal musical programmer. It's about half specialty numbers, and half minor plots, with singer Dick Foran thinking he shouldn't have to drill, and Harry James being baffled by having to play a bugle instead of a trumpet. Shemp Howard feuds with Joe E. Lewis over Mary Wickes, and so forth.

There are a lot of songs in this one, but the big production number is the Andrews sisters singing "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree", which breaks into a nicely shot jitterbug dance number, while James and his band mutate the theme from swing to klezmer and back again. Some great acrobatic dancing by a young troupe of dancers; Donald O'Connor and Peggy Ryan are in the movie, but they don't dance.

Brief, light rousing, unpretentious and just the sort of programmer to play on a double bill with THE BUZZARD OF BERLIN.