The screenplay is beyond stupid, the sets are amateurish and the lighting is so bad, it makes all the actors, including the men, look like they're wearing black lipstick. And there were some obvious technical problems-about half of the scenes have the actors off center, leaving a sizeable amount of blank space. But...it does have some interesting performances. James Lantz (Waldo Crummit) and Keith Painton (Thaddeus J Pinwhistle) are consistently schticky, kind of like 1930's character actors. Jerry Wallace(Johnny Wilson), worked as a stand up comic before he became a singer and that experience comes out when he's MCing the "Pinwhistle Popcorn Hour". He actually manages to be fairly funny, alternating between a faux Southern accent and an overly formal, rather oily announcer voice. You can tell he put a lot of effort to wring every possible drop of humor out of some very weak material. The rest of the time he's a bit gangly and awkward but handles all the musical numbers with great conviction and bravado. Cora Rice (Susie) is a rather bratty moppet whose main focus seems to be keeping big brother Johnny from away from love interest Sheila (Pat McReynolds). Every time Johnny leans over to give Sheila a kiss, the director cuts away to Susie saying something like "the show stinks!" or "you're ruining the party!". This really gets old and makes Johnny and Sheila's relationship overly coy. But there's still some goofy charm and I have to admit it grows on you-kind of like visual potato chips. For me, a guilty pleasure.
Review of Corn's-A-Poppin'
