His first movie appearance is in "Evergreen" a British film from 1934, so I thought I'd give it a watch.
I had never seen it before, but I thought I had heard of it. I knew the star of the movie, Jessie Matthews, by name, but I don't think I had ever seen her in anything, although knew she was very popular.
It turns out that "Evergreen" is a lot of fun! It's a musical and kind of plays like a Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers picture of the era, with a wacky mistaken identity type plot in which Jessie Matthews pretends to be her mother and her leading man is thought to be her son!
Said leading man is Barry MacKay!
He acquits himself quite well here as a light leading man and even does a little singing and dancing. He looks and sounds the same as he would as "Fred" a few years later in MGM's 1938 version of "A Christmas Carol," so you recognize him right away. He doesn't act the same exactly, so he has some range.
This is a Jessie Matthews picture, though, and I can see why she was popular, as she's delightful here. She could sing, dance and act and was very pretty, so what's not to like?
She sings and performs a stunning dance number to the great Rodgers & Hart standard "Dancing on the Ceiling," which made realize I had heard of "Evergreen" from seeing it on record labels!
Jessie and Barry make a nice couple and co-starred in a couple more movies, "Gangway" (1937) and "Sailing Along" (1938). I'll have to check those out as well.
I've seen a number of British films from the 1930s, but way more American ones, so I sometimes forget that British films were a bit saucier, if you will.
In any event, it's good to get some context for Barry MacKay as "Fred" and fun to discover a new/old movie!
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