Since it was free, money to pay the bills had to come from somewhere. One source was Thank Your Lucky Stars, Warner Bros. contribution to the war effort. A plethora of the stars under contract appeared in the movie for a mere 50K, and all of it was donated to the Hollywood Canteen.
The familiar faces predominantly appear briefly in musical numbers or comedy routines, and check the boxes of may of the best-known Warner Bros. movie stars of the era: Humphrey Bogart, Jack Carson, Bette Davis, Alan Hale, Olivia de Havilland, Errol Flynn, John Garfield, John Leslie, Ida Lupino, Hattie McDaniel, Ann Sheridan, Dinah Shore, Alexis Smith, and George Tobias.
The slew of musical numbers are interspersed with the plot, which has Edward Everett Horton and S.Z. Sakall assembling talent for a war relief benefit show. They really want Dinah Shore, and she is willing, but the difficulty is that corny comedian Eddie Cantor is her manager, and wants to take over the show starring himself. Meanwhile, singer Dennis Morgan and would-be songwriter Joan Leslie seek to crash the show, with help from tour bus driver Joe Simpson (Eddie Cantor).
Thank Your Lucky Stars managed an Oscar nomination, for Best Original Song. Today, and perhaps then, it is mostly a curiosity. Bogart and Garfield in comedy bits? Bette Davis singing? Olivia de Havilland, Ida Lupino, Jack Carson, and Alan Hale in vaudeville routines?
It is the novelty and energy, as well as the endearing antics of Eddie Cantor, that make most of the user reviews at imdb.com unfailingly positive. It also helps that young Joan Leslie is in many scenes and is easy on the eyes. The film is generally regarded as a gift from the past to the present. At imdb, it has more than 2K user votes and a fairly high user rating of 6.8 out of 10.
How others will see it. How I felt about it. There are two musical numbers in this movie well worth seeing. They are "Ice Cold Katy", where black actors and dancers briefly commandeer the musical, and an appearance by Spike Jones and His City Slickers, who make us wish they had the entire film, though without "help" from bland All-American boy Dennis Morgan.
Alas, there are also several saccharine numbers from Dinah Shore. Some of the star cameos, notably that of de Havilland, Tobias, and Lupino, could have been left on the cutting room floor, given the long 127 minutes running time. Jack Carson and Alan Hale put over their number through sheer chutzpah. Errol Flynn gives it the old college try, though less successfully, in a song about a bar braggart, reportedly the only time he ever sang in a movie.
Bogart is onscreen for less than 90 seconds, but he is amusing. Bette Davis exudes star power in her one number. Edward Everett Horton is always welcome, but S.Z. Sakall is less endearing. Eddie Cantor, though nearly forgotten today, demonstrates why he was a big star in his day. He is the missing link between Jack Benny and Bud Abbott, though more of the former than the latter.