1h 35min | Comedy, Musical | 17 July 1953
Director: Alexander Hall
Stars: Jane Wyman, Ray Milland, Aldo Ray, Leon Ames.
Valerie Bettis ... choreographer: Valerie Bettis' dances
Lee Scott ... choreographer: Jane Wyman's dances
Cast comparison with The Awful Truth ('37):
Jane Wyman::Irene Dunne
Ray Milland::Cary Grant
Aldo Ray:: Ralph Bellamy
And that film had director Leo McCarey, whom CG was supposedly imitating when he created his future persona during the film.
This is almost a scene-for-scene remake, but without the same dialog, and missing some important cuteness: the shared custody was of the dog (The Thin Man's ('34) Asta by a different name); here it's of a piano that can't be moved because the exterior window has been changed.
And far more important, the cuteness of the reconciliation is completely absent: no broken lock, no cat blocking the door, no animated clock with CG & ID as the dancing figures, and most important, no prolonged mooning by the couple wistfully wanting each other. Here it's much more abrupt and afterthought-ish.
R.Bellamy was a milquetoast 1st generation oil millionaire from Oklahoma with a mother in tow, and she wanted everything to be terribly proper. AR is alone, very virile and rugged (looks out of place in his tuxedo), a uranium millionaire from Alaska.
Per the Soundtracks, 6 songs performed. That's enough to call it a musical, but the songs too feel like an afterthought. JW shows us perhaps why she didn't make more musicals. (Recall that she worked as a chorus girl in many films.) Perhaps she was not so musically adept to emerge from the chorus that way. Her first prominent parts were sassy acting roles, not songs/dances.
Valerie Bettis, who choreographed R.Hayworth in Salome ('53) and Affair in Trinidad ('52) plus a couple of other films, had a dance number (mostly adagio with ~5 chorus boys) that was interesting mostly for the full-length, flared half skirt (more of a train) that was sewn to her stockings down their seams. Made for a good visual effect, but distracted from the dance itself because I was checking whether it was indeed attached.
Fascinating perhaps only to contrast with the truly classic antecedent (though not the original; 2 others were made in the 20's).
Columbia, dir. Hall; 6
