OVP: Mr. Dodd Takes the Air (1937)

Film: Mr. Dodd Takes the Air (1937)
Stars: Kenny Baker, Frank McHugh, Alice Brady, Gertrude Michael, Jane Wyman
Director: Alfred E. Green
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Song-"Remember Me")
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

One of the things that happens when you are going into the DEEP cuts of the Oscar Viewing Project, you discover that Oscar will repeat himself with some truly odd trivia.  Perhaps one of the best recent ones I discovered is that "Remember Me" is not just the name of the Oscar-winning song from Coco, but also the name of a different Oscar-nominated song from eighty years prior, Mr. Dodd Takes the Air.  This is a movie that, until it popped up on TCM recently, I'd never heard of, much less realized was Oscar-nominated.  Unfortunately, the movie bears little resemblance to its weird factoid sibling Coco, but is instead a pretty generic romance from the mid-30's with extremely middling stars.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about Claude Dodd (Baker), a rural electrician who has a beautiful baritone voice.  He is discovered by a national mattress chain, and is hired to be their spokesperson, but after a surgery, it turns out he has a haunting tenor voice, and is instead snapped up by a toothpaste company for an absurd $1000-a-week.  With that kind of money he's pursued by a gold-digger (Michael) and an opera diva (Brady), but only has eyes for a sweet young girl who worked for the mattress company, Marjorie (Wyman).  Marjorie also realizes that Claude has an invention that will easily fix people's radios, and tries to convince him that he should patent it, but he just wants the simple life.  The film ends with him retreating back to his regular life, Marjorie getting the patent (so they'll be rich), and the two kissing under a tree, all's well that ends well.

The film is really simple, and doesn't have a lot to distinguish it.  This was before Wyman was a star, and if you'll recall from past articles, I'm not a big fan of the actress even when she's winning acclaim.  Here she's simply a plucky girl, scrunching her face and wizened to people like Michael's gold-digger, but still properly sweet-as-pie when it comes to Claude.  Baker is almost unknown today (certainly compared to someone like Wyman), but was at one point a relatively big deal, most known for being one of the cast of characters on Jack Benny's radio show.  Here, he plays Claude as ridiculously simplistic, to the point where he needs to act like a diva, he doesn't even know how.  Wyman at least could hit her marks and know what emotion her character is supposed to feel in any given scene.

The film's music is its saving grace, though I'll admit that I'm a bit stumped why "Remember Me" is the nominated tune from it.  It's a fine-enough song, and Baker does have a heavenly voice, but it's not as central to the plot as something like "Here Comes the Sandman," which Baker sings beautifully, and in three separate scenes.  "Remember Me" isn't as good of a song, and it's definitely not as memorable in the movie even though it was covered by more artists afterward.  But the music is good-it's a pity that Baker isn't known at all today for his voice, as this would be a worthwhile soundtrack, and excuse you from seeing such a routine film.