Radio singing star, Eve Porter, wants a vacation during her show's summer hiatus, but her manager and press have booked her for additional work. She refuses and goes to Las Vegas. When she finds them there hunting her down, she manages to escape them by hiding in the car of a newspaper reporter. She comes out of hiding while he is driving, but everything she says is misconstrued, making him believe that she is a recently-escaped convict, "The Singing Widow". He plans to use this as a story to get back into the good graces of his editor. Through some comic mishaps, he learns who she really is. He then decides to take her back to Hollywood to collect the reward for her return. But now love has entered the mix, and must be resolved with his job and her engagement to another.
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Over-worked radio star Eve Porter (Miller) escapes celebrity whirlwind by falling into cross- country car of reporter Ward Williams (Wright) who mistakes her for a serial killer. Hi-jinks ensue, along with several songs.Ann Miller starred in a number of these low-budget wartime musicals. All that I've seen are entertaining and sprightly, thanks to her general sparkle and likability, and I expect all made money— (Columbia knew what it was doing). This one is not front rank—the songs are undistinguished and without Ann's trademark toe-tapping zip. The romance, however, is a cute mix-up where Ward mistakes Eve for a serial killer, of all things. Wright is an obscure leading man who unfortunately died young (38). Here, he makes a good reporter but rather bland male lead for the lively Miller. One notable feature—the hair-do's of that time. I'm wondering how long it took the ladies to coif all their hair into the elaborate buns and curls that Ann, for one, sports. I don't think there's been any style quite like it since. Anyway, someone at Columbia deserved a bonus for the cutest movie title of the year, one I certainly couldn't resist.
Eve Knew Her Apples (1945) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Lighthearted remake of Frank Capra's It Happened One Night has a famous singer (Ann Miller) running away only to be picked up by a man (William Wright) who she doesn't know is a reporter. This is pretty much a scene by scene remake of the Capra film but it removes a lot of footage and just mainly copies the most famous scenes. There's nothing overly funny about this comedy and Ann Miller is a complete bore but fans of the previous film will be slightly entertained by seeing that film redone. Wright certainly steals the show and makes for several nice moments but the screenplay really doesn't allow him to do too much. The film runs a short 64-minutes and goes pretty quickly throughout.
The rating is higher than it ought to be simply because it is fascinating to watch a great movie remade on the cheap for no particular reason other than Columbia already owned it, and comparing it to the original.I walked in on this in the middle. I love Ann Miller, so I kept watching. Suddenly I was hearing very familiar dialog. Hokey smokes, it's "It Happened One Night" only without the lighting, directing, production values, pacing and acting.The sheer audacity of taking a classic (the only picture to win all five major academy awards up to that time) and turning it into a B semi-musical boggled the mind. I even was able to recite the script ahead of the actors (and better).Contrary to the previous comment, they really did use the original brilliant dialog all over the place. It just goes to show that even a work of genius can be destroyed when placed in the wrong hands.
This film has not been shown in so long that I thought maybe it was one of the lost films that are so often talked about. Recently Turner Classic Movies showed a fairly good print, so they must have gotten it out of Columbia's vault.This remake of "It Happened One Night" changes the plot enough to suit Miller's talents, but retains a few of the original plot devices. However, don't judge this film by the original. This one is strictly fluff to showcase Miller, who even though a "B" star, made plenty of money for Columbia in films like this.Miller doesn't dance at all in the film, but she does a creditable job singing four songs, and looks great (at age 22!). In her autobiography, Miller mentions good reviews she got for her singing, so I'm assuming that she didn't need dubbing. In all of her films, her singing voice sounds the same, not that this is any proof.The title must have been chosen to insinuate more to the audience than is actually delivered. Nevertheless, if you like just looking at Ann Miller, you'll enjoy this film. After all, it's only one hour long.