On With The Show!

Tone & Style: Hilarious WWII musical comedy filled with laughs, gags, snappy one-liners and hot big band swing. And while the tone is light and amusing, there are many tense moments of life-threatening danger, horrific destruction and remarkable courage under fire. The wry humor of THE THIN MAN, the dizzy antics of classic ‘30s and ‘40s screwball comedies, the desperate combat of BAND OF BROTHERS and the powerful love triangle of CASABLANCA combine in a highly cinematic and gripping tale of one woman’s powerful journey as she struggles to reconcile a gilt-edged career with a suddenly complicated love life only to find her true self when she plunges headlong into the most ferocious battle of WWII. Story Overview: December, 1944. As Christmas approaches, the end of the war in Europe is in sight. The D-Day invasion has been successful, Paris has been liberated and the Germans are in retreat. US and British bombers based in England unleash daily hell on the Reich, but the Krauts aren’t giving up. Britain is still being terrorized by V-2 rockets, Allied ground forces still have to cross the Rhine and fighting their way to Berlin will be a hard, tough slog every step of the way. But in the heavily forested Ardennes Region of Belgium, Luxembourg and Eastern France, the Germans are secretly preparing a massive, last-ditch counteroffensive spearheaded by 400,000 troops and 1400 Panzer tanks. It will catch the Allies by total surprise and lead to the deadliest and costliest battle of the war. And there will be nothing funny about it. It's the Golden Age of Hollywood and the stars are rolling up their sleeves to help Uncle Sam win the war and bring the boys home. Melanie "Mel" Howell, star of the “Fat Man" movies which have made the witty, martini-swilling husband-and-wife detective team of Dick and Dora Rawls world famous, is bursting with excitement. She's been tapped to headline a USO comedy tour featuring some of Hollywood's biggest stars: Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Mickey Rooney, big band singer Martha Tilton and Ben Jacobs, Hollywood's top leading man and Mel's fiancé. The pre-production meeting at Paramount is full of gags and laughs, leaving no doubt these guys are gonna put on a hell of a show. The troupe arrives in London, under constant threat from German V-2 rockets and settles into The Savoy, where the entrance is ringed with 10 foot sandbags and the Doorman is a steady presence in a gaudy blue and gold-embroidered overcoat. Mel is terrified that Hope has planned some “rookie pranks” and in a fit of comic paranoia, checks her room thoroughly before feeling even remotely safe. Phil Tucker and Lucy Hancock, the bright young Paramount advance team, prove invaluable from the start, making sure the stars have everything they need and like perfect Jeeves manservants, are always close by but never in the way. The troupe begins touring US bomber bases northeast of London with a crack swing band, tons of props and loads of gags and skits. Hope and Benny deliver hilarious monologues; Martha and Mel swing on “Loch Lomond, “A Little Jive Is Good For You” and “He’s 1-A In The Army (And A-1 In My Heart”); Mickey wows ‘em on “Drummer Boy”; everyone tears it up on “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and Mickey and Ben do the classic "Who's On First.” As thousands of young airmen crowd around raucous autograph sessions, each star experiences a magic moment – especially Mel, deeply moved by the heroic flyboys whose only wish is to get a signed picture and a starlet’s smile before going up to die in the skies tomorrow. Mel quickly realizes, to her shame and chagrin, that these impossibly brave kids are the only guys standing between freedom and fascism and the lavish Hollywood life she’s too long taken for granted and starts to re-evaluate what really matters. Suddenly things take an unexpected turn. Back at the Savoy Bar, Mel’s ex-boyfriend Rusty Gates walks in wearing an officer’s uniform and battered overcoat and white “C” Correspondent’s armband and Mel’s heart skips a beat. Tough As Nails Rusty: a man’s man who runs to the sound of the guns – not some actor who runs to his trailer for makeup and hair. It’s been three years since their nasty break up and while the reunion is rocky, there are genuine flickers of warmth. Rusty knows Hope and the rest of the troupe and congratulates Mel on finally getting out of Hollywood and pitching in with the war effort, knowing how much it means to the young airmen they’re going to see. But when Hope implies that victory is near, Rusty sets him straight: the Germans will never quit, and his gut tells him something big is about to blow. The troupe performs at more bomber bases to packed crowds and raucous applause. But Mel can’t get Rusty out of her head. And over drinks with Martha, she sets the record straight about why they broke up. On screen she was Dora Rawls, America’s sweetheart, but in private she was a bitch. And as the world’s highest paid actress, she thought she deserved more than a prize-winning novelist for a boyfriend. So she dumped Rusty and reeled in Ben Jacobs, Hollywood’s handsomest leading man. But she and Ben have little in common, and Rusty’s heart is as deep as the sea. She knows that now, but the damage is done. And when Martha asks Mel how she’s going to solve her crise de coeur, all Mel can do is sigh, blow out a stream of cigarette smoke and say, “On with the show.” The troupe gets an off day and over Ben’s jealous objections, Rusty takes Mel on a grisly tour of London’s Blitz-bombed East End and Docklands, full of starving orphaned children, then to a country convalescent hospital filled with critically wounded American GIs, many who will never make it back home. Rusty wants to shake Mel out of her gilded Hollywood cage and force her to see the war as it really is, but what he doesn’t know is that Mel’s already taken the first step. The shows continue with more songs and skits, then one night Rusty takes the troupe to see the Glenn Miller band performing with The Andrews Sisters in an underground ballroom. It’s a fantastic show, and afterwards Rusty and the troupe surprise Miller backstage. It’s a joyous reunion and Miller tells them he’s catching a ride to Paris in a small plane to set up a Christmas Day broadcast back to the States. But two days later, Miller’s plane goes down in bad weather over the Channel and as Hope announces the tragedy to a shocked hangar of young airmen, Martha delivers a heartbreaking version of “Stardust” that brings everyone to tears. After performing at a bomber base commanded by Major Jimmy Stewart that leads to another raucous Hollywood reunion, Stewart underscores what Rusty said earlier: the Germans aren’t going to surrender and in his distinctive drawl says “It’s gonna be hellzapoppin’ every step of the way.” Suddenly the Germans launch a massive counteroffensive in the Ardennes during a blizzard, catching the Allies by complete surprise. Rusty says he's going to the front and Mel, who’s undergone significant emotional changes and deep self-reflection since arriving in England, insists on coming. And in a hilarious bit of wardrobe improv, Mel dons Rusty’s too-big spare uniform, grabs a pair of beat-up old saddle shoes and swaps her full-length mink for the Savoy’s Doorman’s gaudy blue and gold-embroidered overcoat. Leaving a note for Lucy saying she’s gone to the front with Rusty and telling the troupe “On With The Show!”, Rusty and Mel drive to the coast in the dead of night trading jokes and jabs like the couple they once were and arrive at a fog-shrouded fishing village, where Wally is amused by Mel’s highly unorthodox uniform and tells Rusty they need a break in the weather before he can fly them over. A short break finally comes and Rusty flies them across the Channel at 300 feet through the mist and fog in his old WWI two-seater biplane with Mel squeezed in on Rusty’s lap, deepening her respect for the harrowing life Rusty leads as a balls-out war correspondent. Arriving in Brussels, they take a taxi 50 miles south to a US Army base and hitch a ride in a troop truck headed for the front. Mel climbs in the truck loaded with GIs who instantly recognize her and she breaks the ice by telling a raunchy joke that cracks the guys up and makes her one of them. They reach an infantry staging area and as artillery fire lights up the night sky to the east, the canny Rusty sees a young Corporal guarding a Jeep, gives him a communique that needs to sent pronto and as the Corporal races off, Rusty and Mel pile in the Jeep and head for ground zero: Bastogne. They reach battered-to-rubble Bastogne and find a makeshift church hospital where hundreds of wounded GIs are barely alive with scores of frozen corpses stacked outside. The only doctor says they’ve run out of morphine and plasma and most of the men will die if they’re not evacuated. Terrified but never feeling more alive, Mel pitches in as a nurse as Rusty meets with General McAuliffe, who says the badly outnumbered 101st Airborne been ordered to hold the encircled town at all cost. And with the constant snowfall, there’s no hope of air support to stem the assault. All they can do is try to hold on. Mel ministers to a young GI lying on the floor with a gruesome throat wound who says she looks just like his favorite actress Melanie Howell. Mel is deeply moved and tells him she’s sure Miss Howell would be flattered. But when the soldier says no, she doesn’t care about guys like me, Mel says, “You might be surprised.” The next morning, when Mel looks for the soldier to let him in on her secret and sees he’s not there, she races outside in horror and sees his body stacked with the frozen corpses. As Mel grips his hand and bursts into tears, the old Mel dies and a brave new Mel is born. Suddenly the Germans unleash a hellish bombardment to force a surrender and Rusty, returning from McAuliffe’s HQ, is caught in the open and badly wounded. With the church about to collapse and kill everyone inside, a frantic Mel grabs a battered helmet, guns the stolen Jeep through the rubble dodging bomb blasts and races towards the German lines waving a white flag and screaming to see the commanding General. General von Luttwitz can hardly believe his eyes when Mel is brought before him. “What on earth is the great Melanie Howell doing in Bastogne? And where did you get that marvelous coat?” It’s time for her greatest scene and Mel pulls out all the stops. She tells von Luttwitz about the wounded GIs in the church who’ll die if they’re not evacuated, begs for a pause in the shelling and tells him he’ll be hanged for war crimes if he doesn’t show mercy. The words hit home. Von Luttwitz has sons of his own and knows the war is lost and agrees to the pause on one condition: they do the “Five Martinis” scene from his favorite “Fat Man” movie. With von Luttwitz playing Dick and Mel playing Dora, they do the scene without missing a beat and fall into each other’s arms dying of laughter. Mel races back to Bastogne, finds Rusty alive with a bandaged head and as the skies suddenly clear, scores of American fighter planes and C-130s roar in and turn the tide of battle. Mel and Rusty race back to Brussels, hook up with Wally and cross the Channel in his biplane, then race north to join the troupe for their final show at a bomber base in Cambridgeshire. As Hope brings the show to a close, Mel races on stage in her crazy doorman’s coat-saddle shoes-battered helmet uniform and as the troupe smothers her in hugs and kisses, the packed crowd of airmen have no idea what’s going on or who she is. But when Hope introduces the long lost Melanie Howell, the crowd goes wild. Finding her voice and overwhelmed with emotion, Mel tells them she just got back from Bastogne and delivers a passionate speech about fighting for freedom and as the airmen cheer and the troupe gathers around, Mel leads a stirring sing-along of “White Christmas” that brings everyone to tears. We move to California one year later as Mel and Rusty are quietly married in an old church at Big Sur. And when they step outside, they’re shocked to see the whole gang waiting to wish them well: Hope, Benny, Rooney, Martha, Ben Jacobs, Jimmy Stewart and the recently engaged Phil and Lucy. But the show doesn’t stop there. As Mel and Rusty climb into their honeymoon bed, the whole gang piles in as well and the laughs and gags go on long into the night.