undefined

Product Description ------------------- From uppercrust to bread crusts! When wealthy Mr. Drake goes broke, the servants hatch a plan to restore his fortune and save their jobs: have a lovely maid pose as Drake’s debutante daughter, hoping she’ll land a rich beau. Soon a suitor arrives. "Good morning," he says. "My name is Frank Sinatra." Making his acting debut (he was a vocalist in earlier films) in this merry musical comedy, Sinatra plays the boy next door and (naturally) knows his way around a song, taking on five here, soloing on The Music Stopped, A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening and I Couldn’t a Wink Last Night. Sinatra may be the enduring main attraction but he’s not the only star on view: Victor Borge, Leon Errol, Barbara Hale, Jack Haley, Michele Morgan, Mel Torme, Mary Wickes and Dooley Wilson are also on hand. Encore! .com ---- Madcap movies don't come much madder than Higher and Higher, a 1943 musical best known as the feature debut of Frank Sinatra. In fact, he plays a character called "Frank Sinatra," an aspiring singer drawn into the zany doings at the mansion next door. Seems the patriarch of the place is flat busted, and needs to invent a blueblood daughter to marry off to the nearest eligible millionaire. Manservant (and former Wizard of Oz Tin Man) Jack Haley is in charge of the shenanigans, and scullery maid Michele Morgan is drafted as the daughter (but can't Haley see she's really in love with him?). This is the kind of wacky movie universe in which the blue-collar maid has a French accent and the English nobleman has a Danish accent (it's piano comedian Victor Borge). The songs include "I Couldn't a Wink Last Night" and one Rodgers and Hart number, "Disgustingly Rich." The cast is a hoot: here's Mel Tormé in his first movie, here's horse-faced wisecracker Mary Wickes, here's Casablanca crooner Dooley Wilson. And of course Sinatra at his skinniest, sounding very dulcet of voice. The well-traveled Tim Whelan directed, and he must've done something to make Sinatra feel comfortable--the kid looks like a natural. --Robert Horton