Too Many Girls (1940)

Now immortalized as the film on which Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz met, Too Many Girls is a faithful adaptation of the Richard Rodgers-Lorenz Hart-George Abbott Broadway musical hit. The light-as-a-feather plotline finds four football players hired to escort dizzy heiress Connie Casey (Lucille Ball) when she goes off to attend a southwestern college. The girls far outnumber the boys on campus, which is sheer ambrosia for the four "protectors": Clint Kelly (Richard Carlson), Jojo Jordan (Eddie Bracken), Cuban exchange student Manuelito (Desi Arnaz) and Al Terwilliger (Hal LeRoy). The order of billing should indicate who ends up romancing the icy Connie, but the other boys don't go home empty-handed either, not with such cuties as Pepe (Ann Miller) and Eileen (Frances Langford) around. As was customary in collegiate musicals of the era, the whole thing ends with the Big Football Game, with the four heroes emerging triumphant. It doesn't take a microscope to spot a young Van Johnson among the chorus boys, especially since he shows up on-screen even before the opening credits! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi