You Were Meant for Me

This 1948 film starts its action 20 years earlier in 1928 when the country was in the throes of the Roaring Twenties, the Jazz Age when it seemed like the national party would never end. You Were Meant For Me stars Dan Dailey as a Rudy Vallee like band-leader with Jeanne Crain as the small town girl whom he falls for and marries while on tour. One thing though, Vallee never had the dance moves that Dan Dailey had. I always marveled at how gracefully that big man moved.

If this had been done over at Warner Brothers Jack Carson would have been cast in the lead. Dailey is quite the party animal when good times are plentiful. But the stock market crash comes even with bookings canceling all around him, Dailey feels the need to put up a big front. The man needs a reality trip and Crain is ready to give it to him.

The score is taken from various standards of the Roaring Twenties and that's the best part of the film. Oscar Levant is in the cast as his usual witty and cynical self and we hear him do Gershwin's Concerto in F. Percy Kilbride and Selena Royle are Crain's small town, home town parents who give out some practical advice.

If you like the music of the Twenties than You Were Meant For Me is meant for you.