Frankie Laine racked up plenty of hits in his years as a singer, but he never quite earned the legacy that would mention him in the same breath as Como, Bennett, or Sinatra. That's a shame, because his "blue eyed soul" voice had plenty of power and pizzazz, as can be seen in movies like Sunny Side of the Street (1951), where a young sound stage tour guide (Jerome Courtland) who fancies singing on television gets help from a seasoned pro (Laine, playing himself). Fans of the post-big band era of pop singers will enjoy other performances from Laine, as well as numbers by the likes of Billy Daniels and Toni Arden, but the standout scene is when Laine and Courtland perform the title song in duet. Laine had performed the jazz standard previously in the 1949 musical comedy Make Believe Ballroom, but here he really belts it out in a rhythm-and-blues flavored rendition that stands in contrast to Courtland's more traditional interpretation. While Laine made a total of eight movies, his music appears more regularly on screen than he did, in soundtracks as diverse as Blazing Saddles (1974) and Raging Bull (1980). Film goers can hear his version of "Sunny Side" in films as recent as Hollywoodland (2006) but this is a rare chance to see him perform it on screen.

By Violet LeVoit