Friday, July 08, 2016

Movie review - "Wabash Avenue" (1950) **1/2

These Betty Grable musicals were more tolerable during the war - you can understand the appeal of technicolour fairy floss after a hard day at the munitions factory but to know this was made in 1949, I can't help thinking "Betty don't you want to try something different?"

It's a remake of her 1943 hit Coney Island with Betty again as a singer, only it's in Chicago instead of New York, has Victor Mature instead of George Montgomery, Phil Harris instead of Cesar Romero and Reginald Gardiner instead of Phil Silvers.

The casting changes a lot. Mature is sleazier and less energetic than Montgomery; also less believable as a music man, although he does become better as the film progresses and the character is more likeable. Phil Harris is a ruddy faced comedian who seems bewildered - I assume he's famous from soemething else; he's not remotely believable as a romantic rival for Grable, or a saloon owner, or a scammer or a threat. For me he was the film's big weakness. Gardiner is okay.

There's colour and some jaunty songs and tunes. Grable seems bored at times - she'd made this sort of film a lot by this stage, slapping the face of the leading man and being feisty, etc.
 But it's not bad and I liked it more as it went on.

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