Okay, you take a fish-faced actress with a really awful voice and not that much acting ability, give her just one halfway decent song to sing, build a stupid plot around her that lacks not just a believable quality but any kind of charm or humor, and what have you got? Something that isn't even as entertaining as one of those mediocre Republic or Monogram musicals with Gale Storm or Phil Regan, both of whom sang better, and certainly looked better, than Jessie Matthews. There are about a zillion movie musicals better than this one. As for musicals by Rodgers and Hart, just about anything they did is a zillion times better than "Evergreen."

Evergreen gives us a chance to see Jessie Matthews who starred on stage as well as screen in the United Kingdom in the role that made her a star. So few stars of the 30s and 40s were able to recreate their roles so we are fortunate indeed.Charles Cochran of the London stage, the British equivalent of Florenz Ziegfeld hired American songwriters Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart to write the score for Evergreen. As it is in Hollywood the Gaumont- British only retained a few Rodgers&Hart songs, most importantly Dancing On A Ceiling which was Matthews's first big hit. Some British musical bits and new songs written by British songwriter Harry Woods were written for this film including Over My Shoulder which also became identified with Jessie Matthews.Only later on after Matthews prime years did she go to Hollywood for films turning down a lot of offers. I understand that Gaumont-British also tried to get Fred Astaire to co-star with no success. She and Astaire would have been marvelous.The story has Matthews first appearing on the London stage in the Victorian era and becoming a smash success. But the impending birth of a daughter out of wedlock forces her to retire to South Africa. Going to the Thirties Matthews as her own daughter is seeking employment when publicity agent Barry MacKay convinces producer/star Sonnie Hale to feature the daughter as her ageless mother making a comeback. Unfortnunate her low life of a sperm donor Hartley Power shows up and threatens to blow the whole thing wide open. This is a Fedora like scheme played a little more lightly.Matthews sings and dances divinely especially with Sonnie Hale with whom she was involved in real life and who became her second husband.Rightly so Evergreen is considered the best British musical from that era. I haven't seen better and it holds up well today.

Evergreen is an old evergreen favourite of mine, now 70 years young and rising. Jessie Matthews sparkles but as usual Sonnie Hale tinkles.It's got a typically bizarre 30's British film plot, but it's handled in a defter way than was usual to help suspend your disbelief for the required 90 minutes. Illegitimate 20 yo daughter of deceased famous Music Hall singer comes from obscurity to impersonate her and gains fame as a result, the decent looking chap she's falling for (and vv) finds himself having to impersonate her non-existent son while her real father comes out of the woodwork after 20 years and starts to blackmail them. And for thousands of pounds a time in todays money - nice man!Of course this is all merely filler for the Rodgers & Hart songs, none greater than Dancing On The Ceiling, a sublime and surreal 4 minutes than grows more beautiful every time I see it. Jessie never used her beautiful cut glass voice to better effect. She was supposed to be a great dancer but I've not seen any evidence of it yet in her films, but this is probably as close as she ever will come to impressing me in that department. I'm always mindful of Dirk Bogarde's personal assessment of her dancing talents in the BBC documentary about her that he narrated in the early '90's that she was better than Ginger Rogers, and that she was a success in the US because of this. Again, Rogers had her own style - maybe Jessie was better in a chorus line; to me she danced like an ostrich on an escalator, her flying feet competition only to Charlotte Greenwood or Jackie Chan. Having said that, I could watch her films until the cows came home, they're all pleasant with good music, good dancing and good stories - sometimes!Watch this and marvel - that anyone as vital as she could die in obscurity in a nursing home and be buried unmarked in an obscure cemetery.

I have just seen a pristine print of this film on a large cinema screen and it was a real delight. For English readers, Jesse Matthews is best known as a radio soap star, but in this film she shows she was first a dancer, then a comedienne (her timing is excellent) and then a singer. The radio work came later. Her dancing is superb. Recall the dancing days and looks of Una Stubbs then add the radiant beauty of a young Joan Collins... For American readers, there is a brief on screen appearance by the choreographer, unable to obtain credit for his work in the Busby-Berkeley movies for which he did so much. The big dance numbers are superb. The story somehow works and there is an energy and sense of fun which does much to entertain. No bad language. No nudity- but Matthews dancing is quite sensuous enough. Lovely family film. Try to see it if the new print appears near you. And surely there must be a DVD release soon... (perhaps from the BFI).