Higher and Higher (1943)

The staff at the grand house of “Drake” (Leon Errol) might have known the writing was on the wall when their pay cheques didn’t arrive for the seventh month in a row. Yep! The old man is bust. Not to be beaten, his imaginative valet “O’Brien” (Jack Haley) comes up with quite a wheeze to make them solvent again. The staff are going to perform a bit of George Bernard Shaw on parlour maid “Millie” (Michèle Morgan) and turn her into the eligible daughter of the house and so, hopefully, procure an advantageous marriage with a man who has more money than sense. She turns out to be not half bad at glamming it up, but when dashing young butler Frank Sinatra (no need to give his character another name!) turns up, the cat is swiftly set amongst the pigeons. To be honest, the plot here is almost entirely incidental to a series of amiable McHugh and Adamson ditties that are regularly placed throughout the film. Perhaps the most memorable of these are “I Couldn’t Sleep a Wink Last Night” and “Lovely Way to Spend an Evening” and Sinatra isn’t the only one exercising his vocal chords. Barbara Hale, Mel Tormé and legendary comedy pianist Victor Borge all share the musical limelight too. Of course, the grand designs of the plot are never destined to succeed as real romance overtakes the venal one, and the ensemble cast work together really quite entertainingly as we mix our manoeuvring with a minuet and a very useful dumb waiter. It’s a wartime feel good movie that probably won’t stick in your mind for long, but it is an easy watch for ninety minutes.