Copyright 12 May 1939 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening at the Roxy: 5 May 1939. U.S. release: 5 May 1939. U.K. release: July 1939. Australian release: 10 August 1939. 7,766 feet. 86 minutes. (Available on an excellent Fox DVD).SYNOPSIS: Singer falls for a no-good gambler. NOTES: Originally Faye sang "I'll See You In My Dreams" in a New York supper club sequence. Other deleted songs were "Avalon" and "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows". Fanny Brice sued the studio for damages. The matter was settled out of court. Remade in 1968 as Funny Girl.VIEWER'S GUIDE: Difficult. Based on the career of Fanny Brice (and also partly on that of Al Jolson himself), so I would say suitable for all.COMMENT: If Love Me Tonight is one of my favorite musical comedies, Rose of Washington Square is certainly one of my top choices for musical drama. Not that there is no comedy in this movie. Far from it. In fact Hobart Cavanaugh contributes the portrayal of his career as the unwitting if ultimately very willing stooge. And Jolson plays the scenes with Cavanaugh with such panache, it's hard to realize his screen career was virtually over. Of course he also has some of his trademark songs and these he puts over with such style, Jolie is worth the price of admission alone. But despite his huge contribution to the movie's overall appeal, Jolson is only the support. It's Alice Faye's movie. And what a great performance she gives! And boy, does she knock over those songs! Power is magnetic too, giving a far more accurate and far more arresting interpretation of Nicky Arnstein than the bland and disappointingly colorless Omar Sharif. Power is a confidence man with persuasively shallow charm. Ideally cast. This and Nightmare Alley are Power at his absolute best.Every other player in Rose is as forcefully cast from William Frawley's fix-it agent through Ben Welden's sarcastically menacing Toby and Charles Wilson's nemesis of a flatfoot to Harry Hayden's frightened victim ("I've got a gun!"). Armed with Nunnally Johnson's scintillating dialogue and taking every advantage of their dramatic opportunities, many of these character people likewise hand out some of the most memorable cameos of their lives. Welden, for example, must have been cast in hundreds of movies, but this is his finest hour ("I've got to hand it to you, Clinton...")Johnson's script is a model of fine screen writing. Not only has he told the Fanny Brice-Nicky Arnstein story in a powerfully fast-paced 86 minutes (Funny Girl took a ponderous 155 to cover the same ground), but he has fleshed it out with an extraordinarily large gallery of fascinating subsidiary characters as well (aside from the swamped Streisand and soggy Sharif, I don't remember any other people in Funny Girl at all). And in addition to these miracles of arresting narrative construction, Johnson has still allowed plenty of time for some terrific standards from both Jolson and Faye, both of whom are in tip-top voice.Director Gregory Ratoff has risen nobly to the occasion. I've remarked before in Hollywood Classics that Ratoff's directorial abilities seemed to swing violently yet unaccountably from the extremely banal to the inventively brilliant from one film to another. Fortunately, Rose finds him at his most stylishly accomplished. Not only has he drawn winning performances from his players, but he reinforces the drama and comedy in Johnson's script by inspired camera placements and deft cutting. Or maybe it's ace cinematographer Karl Freund's inspired camera placements and Louis Leoffler's smooth, forceful cutting. In any case, Freund's masterful lighting of course is a major asset. And I loved the sets and costumes. Production values are lavish — and there's that wonderful 20th Century-Fox sound!

The title refers to Alice Faye as Rose of Washington Square, in this film that is loosely based on the life of Fanny Brice. You may not recognize it or realize that, if you didn't see "Funny Girl" just prior to it or knew certain facts about her and Nick Arnstein. But, Fanny and Nick filed a lawsuit against the movie, because songs that were included would have made it obvious to the current moviegoers just who it was all about. So, the executives had to edit or take out songs which were too closely identified with Fanny Brice. But, the film stands on its own merits without knowing anything about them. Alice Faye may be the star (and she has some good songs, too), but it's Al Jolson that almost outshines her with some great show-stopping numbers: "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with Dixie Melody" and "California, Here I Come."The only qualm I have is that, the song "Rose of Washington Square" that is sung here doesn't have the same verses that singer Ann Dee sings in "Thoroughly Modern Millie." It is the same song; that I know. The different movies just decided to sing different verses of it. I personally like the slow presentation in "Millie", where Ann Dee is sitting on top of a piano in the smoke-filled room in "Thoroughly Modern Millie". If only a movie had the song in its entirety for posterity. That notwithstanding, this movie is out on an Alice Faye DVD collection (the edited version), so it has a chance of being discovered, which is good, because the music is too good to be buried away somewhere.

In this early version of the Funny Girl story, Alice Faye as Rose Sargent simply shines in her performance. Alice's warm contralto voice was one of the easiest to take of any musical star from the Thirties. She's helped her by a collection of post World War I standards and a new song written by the 20th Century Fox songwriting team of Mack Gordon and Harry Revel, I Never Knew Heaven Could Speak.Other than the names were changed to make them ethnically neutral, Alice, as Fanny Brice, sings a lot of ballads in her own style. Fanny Brice as a performer was nothing if not ethnic. Other than her famous standard My Man, in which Faye reprises her well, Brice's repertoire consisted of comedy numbers mostly with an accent to identify her Lower East Side of New York Jewish origins.Still Alice in her goyish version of Fanny was real enough so that Fanny sued 20th Century Fox to stop the film. She and Darryl Zanuck reached an out of court settlement.Tyrone Power is Hobart DeWitt Clinton(Nicky Arnstein), a name certainly waspy enough to disguise any ethnicity. It's Ty's third and final film with Alice Faye. Whether played by Power or Omar Sharif, the husband's role is a tricky one. He's a charming con man and you can't make him to weak or the audience will never understand why Faye is even bothering with him. Of course if you have the looks of Tyrone Power, it's easy. But you do have to have the talent to match which Power does. In the storyline at the beginning, Power is identified as having served in the American Expeditionary Force in France in World War I. Deliberately put there to make the audience empathetic with him. After all in 1939 there were certainly a lot of moviegoers who were veterans or in the families of World War I veterans.Al Jolson was here and shares the spotlight with Faye in singing some of his old standards from that period. He was very good in his part as Faye's confidante and fellow performer. But Jolson with his ego did not like sharing the spotlight with anyone. His three 20th Century Fox roles were supporting or guest star roles and he hated it. Equally I might add that Alice Faye couldn't stand him.Irony of ironies, back in the day Jolson himself got into a famous feud with Walter Winchell who was the creative genius behind Broadway Through a Keyhole. That film was a disguised version of his own courtship and marriage to Ruby Keeler and Jolson was the one doing the suing then. Alice Faye is not Fanny Brice in the film, but I'm happy with her just being Alice Faye.

Very entertaining- a thinly disguised bio-pic of Fanny Brice. Power and Faye- at their acting peaks- are great as the leads. Faye is in great voice. However, Jolson steals the movie. At the age of 54, he was in the best voice of his career. His Rock- a Bye and California Here I Come are thrilling. I own the video, which also contains clips of several Jolson and Faye songs which were edited out of the final movie. a must for fans of the three stars.