Students of Anthony Mann generally divide his career into four phases: the early formative years when he took on just about every genre film assigned to him; the noir films of the late 40s; the Westerns of the 1950s; and the epics he directed in his last years. The Bamboo Blonde (1946) falls into the first category, a B musical designed to capitalize on lingering wartime sentiment and on the popularity of its singing star Frances Langford. Musicals were not Mann's forte, and he remembered this and the other productions from this era without any fondness or enthusiasm, remarking that he "floundered listlessly" until finding his true footing with Desperate (1947), the film that followed The Bamboo Blonde.

Some have noted, however, a refreshing down-to-earth quality in The Bamboo Blonde, thanks largely to its low budget. Lack of funds meant no luxury for the sort of over-designed and unrealistic sets and costumes on hand in the big productions, offering instead "ordinary" characters in ordinary settings without the trappings of high glamour.

The story features Langford as a smalltime nightclub singer who falls for a pilot shipping out to the Pacific. On Saipan, his crew paints her picture on the nose of their plane and christens it "The Bamboo Blonde." The club's owner sees the chance to exploit the success of their wartime missions by advertising the real Bamboo Blonde as his singer and developing a line of products to capitalize on her new fame.

This was Langford's return to stateside show business after a few years entertaining the wartime troops, primarily in the company of Bob Hope. Reviewers noted rather unkindly that the time on the frontlines seemed to have taken its toll on her appearance. A cute, round-faced blonde but never a great beauty, Langford's great appeal had been what was often described as her honey voice, first made popular through extensive radio fame and later in a string of B-pictures. Perhaps to mitigate criticism of the star's looks, many reviewers put the blame on cinematographer Frank Redman, who had apparently done better by Langford in her earlier musical Too Many Girls (1940).

The songs Langford performs here were hardly up to the standards of her hits "I'm in the Mood for Love" or "You Are My Lucky Star," and reviewers at that time noted that only one, "Dreaming Out Loud," had even the slightest chance of outliving the picture. They were written by Mort Greene and Lew Pollack, who individually and together created tunes for several B-pictures, often uncredited, as they are on this movie. Greene, however, made an indelible cultural impression years later with his theme song for the TV series Leave It to Beaver. Pollack died of a heart attack at age 51 only a few months before The Bamboo Blonde was released.

The nightclub owner is played by Ralph Edwards, another popular radio personality who made the transition to film in the 1940s. Like Langford, Edwards only made a handful of pictures, none of them particularly distinguished, while keeping up his busy broadcast career. He later created and hosted the successful 1950s TV series This Is Your Life, in which celebrities, apparently caught unaware, were whisked off to a studio to be present for an on-air biography. Edwards later created and produced the popular TV show The People's Court.

Also featured in the cast is Jane Greer (cast as the male lead's snooty rich fiancée) in one of her earliest roles. She got her biggest break a year later as a prototypical film noir femme fatale opposite Robert Mitchum in Out of the Past (1947). Subsequent projects boded well for a long and successful career, but Greer put a higher priority on her family and private life for many years and made relatively few films.

Director: Anthony Mann
Producer: Herman Schlom
Screenplay: Olive Cooper, Lawrence Kimble, based on a story by Wayne Whittaker
Cinematography: Frank Redman
Editing: Les Millbrook
Art Direction: Albert S. D'Agostino, Lucius Croxton
Original Music: Mort Greene, Lew Pollack (songs, uncredited)
Cast: Frances Langford (Louise Anderson), Ralph Edwards (Eddie Clark), Russell Wade (Patrick Ransom), Iris Adrian (Montana), Jane Greer (Eileen Sawyer).
BW-67m.

by Rob Nixon