From All Movie Guide  
The Battling Hoofer is the reissue title of the 1937 James Cagney vehicle Something to Sing About. Jimmy plays a New York bandleader who heads to Hollywood when he is offered a movie contract. The down-to-Earth Cagney resists the "star treatment", an attitude misinterpreted by movie executive Gene Lockhart as arrogance. When Cagney's first film is a hit, Lockhart orders everyone involved to keep its success a secret from Jimmy, lest he develop a swelled head! (We don't believe it either). The best sequence has Cagney chewing out his oriental houseboy Philip Ahn, whereupon Ahn drops his "So solly" pidgin English and begins talking like a Harvard professor. Cagney gets to romance newcomer Evelyn Daw, as well as veteran vamp Mona Barrie; he also gets to participate in several lively dance numbers. Something to Sing About was the second of James Cagney's films for poverty-row studio Grand National: the production values and snappy scriptwork that he might have enjoyed at Warner Bros. are noticeably lacking, but Jimmy is always fun to watch. Hal Erickson