Rare! Eleanor Powell, a dancer trying to create show-biz headlines, and new-to-the-game publicist Dennis O’Keefe bicker about the right way to ballyhoo and end up falling for each other, with their tumultuous, growing romance punctuated by a series of various musical acts and comedians, including stellar luminaries such as W.C. Fields, Cab Calloway (!), Sophie Tucker, Woody Herman and Les Paul (!). Famed and rotund gravel-voiced grouch, Eugene Pallette (The Lady Eve) appears as O’Keefe’s father, a big-time press agent. Eleanor Powell’s dance routine, set inside a gigantic pinball machine (to the tune of “Spin, Little Pinball”) was a bit too off-the-wall surrealist for critics at the time but is sure to delight and drop your jaw now. With Lyle Talbot, C. Aubrey Smith. Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Music Score.
Marc Edward Heuck discusses Sensations of 1945 on the New Beverly blog.
