Cinema Revisited: Three Little Words (1950)

Directed by Richard Thorpe. Starring Fred Astaire, Red Skelton, Vera-Ellen, Arlene Dahl, Keenan Wynn, Gale Robbins, Gloria DeHaven, Debbie Reynolds, Carleton Carpenter. Released July 12, 1950. Running time 102 minutes.

Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby were songwriters whom fate joined together, resulting in such tunes as "Hooray for Captain Spaulding," "Who's Sorry Now," "I Wanna Be Loved By You," and "You Are My Lucky Star." In this movie bio, they are played by Fred Astaire and Red Skelton, and both actors do an excellent job with their roles.

Unfortunately, as with most movie bios, the story here has little basis in fact. It features Ruby and Kalmar meeting when Bert is a vaudeville magician and Ruby is asked to be his assistant. He botches things up in a comical fashion, but his foibles cause laughter and applause. This scene is all Red Skelton, but never happened in the lives of Kalmar and Ruby. Harry Ruby longed to be a major league baseball player, so there is an extended sequence tossed in where he practices with the Washington Senators, allowing Skelton to do some more of his stock-in-trade comic turns.

Because both men got along well from the time they met, a conflict had to be created for the narrative, so we have Ruby going behind Kalmar's back and sabotaging the possibility of a play he wrote being produced because he realizes it would be a flop. This conflict is very central to the plot development, so the fact that it never happened makes the entire movie ring false.

However, the movie is colorful and lightweight fun in spite of its inaccuracy. Fred Astaire, in fact, turns in what might be the finest performance of his career. He is playing a real person, and despite how inaccurately some events are portrayed, Astaire, who knew Bert Kalmar, investigates the man's character traits and offers a performance filled with depth and nuance. Red Skelton doesn't stray too far from the screen character he usually plays -- a comic bumbler who can lapse into drama -- but since Harry Ruby was somewhat like that in life, the performance works (Ruby, alive at the time of production, has a cameo in the baseball sequence).

Along with the performances, the music, so many timeless classics all collected in one production, is exceptional. Debbie Reynolds appears as a young Helen Kane, but it is the real Helen Kane dubbing her. Gloria de Haven plays her real life mother, who introduced the song "Who's Sorry Now," a hit for Connie Francis decades later. Vera-Ellen's singing voice is dubbed, but we do get to see her dance with Fred Astaire.

The fact that there isn't a lot of dancing in "Three Little Words," certainly not as much as the typical Astaire film, makes it a bit curious that Fred always cited this film as one of his favorites. Perhaps it is because the role he plays forces him to tap into acting skills he might not have realized he had. In any case, he rises to the occasion and plays the role beautifully.

"Three Little Words" was a box office hit in its time, and manages to still be effectively happy entertainment in the 21st century. This isn't the place to go for a fully accurate look at the Kalmar-Ruby relationship. But it is a nice look at each man's creative process, played by actors who understand the characters with earnestness.