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Janet Leigh, playing a young hopeful from Pelican Falls, Vt., hits Broadway just as Tony Martin is hopelessly leaving. An accidental switch of suitcases at the bus depot brings them together, and a finagling agent (Eddie Bracken) teams them with Gloria De Haven, Ann Miller and Barbara Lawrence on the phony assurance that they will get a spot on Bob Crosby's TV show. When they don't, Janet blames Martin and walks out on the act. But a last-minute booking on the Crosby show brings her rushing to the studio from a homeward-bound bus.
Like an evening with TV, Two Tickets to Broadway comes laden with acrobats (The Charlivels), vaudeville comics (Smith
& Dale) and jokes about Bing Crosby's moneybags (by brother Bob). As it turns out, these items, plus the old Rodgers & Hart tune, Manhattan, offer occasional relief from the picture's tired situations and tasteless staging. Actor Martin, in good voice, is better heard than seen. Bright-eyed Actress Leigh proves a bust as a singer and a dancer, but is undeniably a hit as a bust.
* Including $3,000,000 in frozen Italian lire. Before M-G-M breaks even, Quo Vadis will have to earn $14,000,000 at the box office. Gone With the Wind, which cost $4,000,000 in 1939, has grossed $32 million so far. * Still wearing the famed mustache he later shaved off for a role in the forthcoming The Sniper (TIME, Oct. 1).