film. There's also the suggestion of artistic conflict in Power's character, a classically trained violinist who finds fulfillment with popular music, much to the chagrin of his mentor, played by Jean Hersholt. A collection of songs on film can be filmed with some kind of dramatic heft, perhaps best most recently realized when Julie Taymor created Across the Universe from the Lennon-McCartney songbook. In Alexander's Ragtime Band there is no drama in wondering when Tyrone Power will realize that Alice Faye, and not Ethel Merman, is his one true love.

The film is something of a showcase for Merman. This is a more slender, even sexy Ethel Merman. She has the pipes that she was always famous for, but she's not the woman who verged on self-parody or punchlineknown for her brief marriage to Ernest Borgnine. Merman might not have been conventionally attractive, but her first shots suggests that there was potential if she was photographed in just the right way. For myself, its enough to want to take any opportunities to see her other films from the Thirties. Most of the time, the camera simply records Merman singing "Blue Skies" and "A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody". Of more visual interest is seeing Merman in a flesh revealing outfit as a devil, with a chorus of female devils, performing "Pack Up Your Sins and Go to the Devil". An unintended and ironic reading could be given to the song "Marching Along with Time", a deleted number included as a DVD extra, as the formerly