Rose of Washington Square [1939] [DVD]

Twentieth Century-Fox's leading blonde Alice Faye plays Rose in a very thinly disguised biopic of Ziegfeld headliner Fanny Brice, later more memorably incarnated by Barbra Streisand in the show and movie Funny Girl (and its sequel). Here, Faye falls for handsome but no-good, and severely underwritten, gambler Tyrone Power, and is inspired by him to sing Brice's theme song My Man.

But the real treat of the movie (unless you're a Faye fanatic) is the appearance of the great Al Jolson, playing one Ted Cotter, who sings a batch of his own top hits. There's no direction to speak of, but Intermezzo's Gregory Ratoff is credited.