1h 1min | Musical, Romance | 30 December 1948
Director: Phil Karlson
Stars: Adele Jergens, Marilyn Monroe, Rand Brooks.
Jack Boyle ... dance director
Watched online; good print for a small screen.
This is supposedly MM's 5th film. I say "supposedly" because I didn't see her in Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (1948), but I didn't actually try to find her. And I didn't know to look for her in You Were Meant for Me (1948). (I haven't seen the other 2 films.)
No, AJ does not appear to be related to Virginia Mayo, even though that's who I think of when I see AJ.
AJ (b. '17) plays MM's (b. '26) mother, complete with gray hair. But that's all they do to "age" her. And since they're working side-by-side in the chorus, it's good that she doesn't really look old enough to be mom.
Soundtracks lists 6 songs, with AJ dubbed but MM not. 2 of the songs are performed at the party near the end of the film. 2 are solo performances by MM on the burlesque stage. 1 is a similar solo by AJ. All dancing is easy steps of show girls who dance a little, except AJ's solo, which was a flashback to her younger, burlesque-star days. But her tapping is slow and not great, as you would expect of a burlesque (not B'way) performance.
The majority of the film is occupied by MM's romance with an audience member: rich guy, at least 2nd gen money. But it echoes AJ's marriage to MM's father, cue the flashback. We get a fun happy ending. I won't spoil it in the hopes I forget.
From this performance, it's not so clear that MM will become a superstar. She's very watchable, but not so mesmerizing as in Love Happy ('49) or All About Eve ('50), where she trots out her seductive persona. Here she's just a regular pretty girl with a winning smile and a nice figure. Later she pretends to be devastating to men, and pretends to be innocent about it. It's that persona which becomes MM the superstar. So this is an excellent film to compare MM with her future persona.
Columbia, dir. Karlson; 6
