Fans of Alice Faye will enjoy Wake Up and Live (1937), a fast-talking, fast-moving, altogether delightful musical comedy that solidified Faye's status as one of the top stars at 20th Century-Fox -- this despite the fact that she was third-billed. Top billing went to non-actors Walter Winchell and Ben Bernie, which is reasonable considering they are given so much screen time and because it was around their real-life, playful, over-the-airwaves feud that the screenplay was constructed. (One barb, from Bernie to Winchell: "You're one in a million, and that's one too many.") Winchell, of course, was the pre-eminent gossip columnist of the era and also had a radio show, while Bernie was a big-band leader.

Even with Winchell, Bernie and Faye on hand, Wake Up and Live is really Jack Haley's picture. He does a fine job as a singer with a severe case of "mike fright," so nervous of singing into a microphone that he takes a job instead as an usher at a broadcasting company. During one Ben Bernie broadcast, Haley finds an empty studio and sings along with the music, assuming the mike is dead. It isn't. His voice (actually Buddy Clark's, who dubbed Haley's songs) goes out over the air and stuns the nation, but no one knows who the mysterious, beautiful voice belongs to. Winchell and Bernie dub him the "Phantom Troubadour" and start an exhaustive battle to be the first to find him. Meanwhile, Haley meets Alice Faye, a motivational broadcaster/singer at the network who agrees to help him conquer his mike fright. When she figures out that he is the Phantom Troubadour, the plot takes even more entertaining turns.

Wake Up and Live is full of little touches and a general attitude that reflect the romantic radio era very well, even as the movie also satirizes it. The art deco sets and sleek architecture are simply amazing. The supporting cast is full of popular players including Patsy Kelly and Ned Sparks, wry as ever. Sparks's deadpan delivery makes any line funny, especially lines like "Your luck changed when you met me, beaverpuss," and "He's so two-faced the barber's gotta shave him twice." Also on hand are the Condos brothers, a specialty dance team who perform some impressive tap routines, including one while sitting in chairs.

As for that lovely canary Alice Faye, she sings only two of the Mack Gordon/Harry Revel songs -- the title track and "There's a Lull in My Life" -- and there's perhaps not quite enough of her in this picture overall. But then again, she flashes her winning smile so much that only those with hearts of stone could possibly fail to be charmed. Faye's appeal remains timeless.

Fox Cinema Archives' no-frills, made-on-demand DVD-R does not feature a remastered picture, but image and sound quality are still reasonably OK and the disc is well worth a look. (However, there is a jump in the film at the end of the Fox fanfare/logo and the beginning of the main title card; only a few frames are missing but it's in a very annoying spot.) Fox has also just made available two more worthwhile musicals from the same era: Sally, Irene and Mary (1938), again starring Alice Faye, and the snappy Thanks a Million (1935), starring Dick Powell and Ann Dvorak.

By Jeremy Arnold