1h 25min | Comedy, Musical, Romance | 4 January 1947 | Color
Directors: George Seaton, Edmund Goulding (uncredited), John M. Stahl (uncredited)
Stars: Betty Grable, Dick Haymes, Anne Revere, Elizabeth Patterson, Allyn Joslyn, Gene Lockhart.
Hermes Pan ... dances stager
Angela Blue ... assistant choreographer (uncredited)
She was a top pinup girl in WW2, she had her legs insured for $1M by Lloyd's of London, and in one of her musicals a stage manager insulted her by stating she couldn't make a living in a long dress. So what does Fox do? Puts her in a long dress with bussell, makes her a career girl/suffragette, and has her sing opposite Dick Haymes. And they wonder why this didn't do well at the box office? It's like asking the Marx Brothers to do a straight romcom, with them as the romantic leads. Where was the Sanity Clause?
I rated this a 6 previously, and will leave it at that. It's interesting for the equal rights for women arguments, but the ending is ambiguous in that regard. (As BG was giving such speeches, I wondered how she might have felt herself. She certainly worked all her life, and hubby HJ spent her money, a consequence of equal "rights.") Ann Revere is under-utilized, but welcome. And Elisabeth Risdon as mother to DH is a breath of fresh air.
I have no idea what Pan did on this film. Did the party need choreography (with an assistant, no less)?
Fox, dir. Seaton, Goulding, Stahl; 6
