interesting movie

Caught an old movie the other night that may be of interest to fans of the jazz and also the mandolin!

It's "Second Chorus", from 1940, starring Fred Astaire, Paulette Goddard, and Burgess Meredith. Music by Artie Shaw, (whose orchestra performs), lyrics by Johnny Mercer,including a song "Poor Mr. Chisholm", Mr. Chisholm being a quirky character who plays mandolin. The song chronicles the difficulty he has swinging. The mandolin appears to be a mid or late '30's F model Gibson, a 7 perhaps? It had the unusual non-flowerpot inlay.

Astaire and Meredith play college buddies who are trumpet players and have a hot band. Of course they both vie for the attention of Goddard, who winds up being Artie Shaw's agent/manager and tries to get them auditions with the great Shaw. Wackiness ensues.

Astaire's solos are dubbed by all-time great Bobby Hackett, Meredith's by equally great Billy Butterfield, also a member of Shaw's band at the time. Don't know who handled the mandolin.

you can find it on Youtube..not a great movie necessarily, but how many movies contain both words: "jazz" and "mandolin"?

I saw that movie last year sometime. It was interesting.