Stand Up and Cheer! Reviews

This Depression-era escapist entertainment stars Baxter as a Broadway producer who is the newly appointed "Secretary of Entertainment." The simple premise succeeds by allowing an entourage of musical entertainment, including Shirley Temple before she became the biggest money-maker in Hollywood, Aunt Jemima (Tess Gardella), and a penguin, posing as Jimmy Durante, that serves to baffle Stepin Fetchit. Humorist Will Rogers is generally credited with the basic idea for this hodgepodge of movie, theater, and vaudeville stars and second bananas. Its aim was to give America a boost out of the Depression and into a state of happiness where a winsome tot like the four-year-old Temple could reign supreme. Naturally, plenty of musical numbers help things along. Songs include "I'm Laughing" (Jay Gorney, Lew Brown; sung by Nick Foran, Tess Gardella), "We're Out of the Red" (Gorney, Brown; sung by John Boles, Gardella), "Broadway's Gone Hillbilly" (Gorney, Brown; sung by Sylvia Froos), "Baby Take a Bow" (Gorney, Brown; sung by Shirley Temple, James Dunn, Patricia Lee), "This Is Our Last Night Together" (Gorney, Brown; sung by Boles, Froos), "She's Way up Thar" (Brown), "Stand up and Cheer" (Brown, Harry Akst).