My Gal Sal (20th Century-Fox) is the kind of bright, tuneful, lighthearted musical that was once Broadway's dish. It has the authentic Tin-Pan Alley touchgilded by the nostalgic charm of the nicely naughty '90s. It also has so many other good things that it is a rare cinema treat.
A warm share of Sal's appeal is owing to the man it celebrates: genial, sentimental, gargantuan (300 lb.) Paul Dresser, onetime minstrel, most popular song writer of the '90s, and oldest brother of lugubrious Novelist Theodore Dreiser (who kept the original family name). Dreiser,...
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