Tim Whelan’s Higher and Higher is an amiable but forgettable 1944 musical, very loosely adapted from a Broadway musical and starring Jack Haley and Michèle Morgan. In all honesty it is unlikely it would be remembered at all were it not for Frank Sinatra’s appearance in a key supporting role – his first proper acting gig, and the start of a long, successful screen career.

Millionaire Cyrus Drake (Leon Errol) is heading for bankruptcy. To save all of their livelihoods, he and his staff of servants conspire together to marry off Drake’s daughter to the richest man they can find. The catch? Drake’s daughter lives in Switzerland and has not spoken to him in years. Instead French scullery maid Millie Pico (Morgan) is led to impersonate the daughter, trap a wealthy victim, and save both her own job and her boss’ fortune.

It is a genuinely weird storyline around which Higher and Higher is wrapped, raising nothing but questions and not providing any satisfactory answers. Why would Drake’s staff go to such lengths to not only keep their jobs but keep him so undeservedly wealthy? How would Millie’s deception possibly work in the long term? How could the plan end in any way that does not end with people in police custody? The film’s own solution to these problems is to play the affair as fast and loose as it can manage, and with a vivid ensemble cast of colourful eccentrics and exaggerated stereotypes.

Jack Haley, best known to modern audiences as the Tin Man in The Wizard Of Oz, plays former showman turned butler Mike O’Brien with a surfeit of wit and pace. His partner in crime is publicist Sandy, played brightly by Mary Wickes. Other members of the ensemble include Dooley Wilson (Sam in Casablanca) and a spectacularly over-the-top Marcy McGuire as the original overly-attached girlfriend. Michèle Morgan is effective in the middle of the group as Millie, balancing the needs of the film as a romantic ingenue and as a physical comic. Pianist Victor Borge is charming as Sir Victor Fitzroy Victor, the target of the Drake household’s scam.

It is all remarkably silly stuff, but is played with enthusiasm and good humour. While the plot is weak and unconvincing, the comedy successfully papers over many of the cracks. While it’s an American film, there is an odd Ealing Studios vibe all over it.

Then there is Frank Sinatra, improbably playing a fictionalised version of himself. The film ignores numerous avenues to smoothly incorporate him into the story, and instead posits that popular young singer Sinatra simply lives next door to the Drake mansion. He acts as a confidante for Millie throughout the film, as well as an oddly ever-present singer – the majority of the film’s songs are performed by him. He is even there at the very end: as two characters waltz up into the clouds he looms above them, crooning away, like a musical Colossus of Rhodes.

This is a weird movie.