Movie review - "The Farmer Takes a Wife" (1953) **

 Not much of a musical though Fox splashed the cash on some decent sets and costumers - it's almost overproduced. Some of the tunes aren't bad. Betty Grable seems unsure. She wears huge dresses and is a cook on the canal. She has no chemistry with Dale Robertson who is alright but really has no business being in a musical (a John Payne would have been much better.). Their romance involves him rough handling her. Thelma Ritter's part is too small.

Occasionally comes alive - a dance Grable does with Gwen Verdon, I think, and there's a decent brawl on a boat at the end.

But this isn't much. 

Marilyn Monroe Top Ten

 Not many films but anyway

1) Some Like It Hot (1959) - easy choice, so perfect... imagine Mitzi Gaynr in this. No thanks.

2) Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) - again, easy choice - shame she was never reteamed with Russell.

3) How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) - glorious fun. Steals movie. 

4) Bus Stop (1956) - I recall Don Murray being creepy and Marilyn being great.

5) All About Eve (1951) - one scene but a great one.

6) The Misfits (1961) - flawed, but marvelous

7) Niagara (1953) - she's probably miscast but it's a good movie.

8) There's No Business Like Show Business (1954) - hokey story but those song and dance numbers!

9) The Seven Year Itch (1955) - icon.

10) Don't Bother to Knock (1952) - haven't seen this in ages just throwing it in there.

Movie review - "How to be Very Very Popular" (1955) **

 Betty Grable's last movie suffers under the leaden direction of Nunnally Johnson. Johnson wrote and produced How to Marry a Millionaire which also starred Grable, but directing these things are harder than they look.

It doesn't help that it's not a musical when it should be, or that Marilyn Monroe turned down the lead and they used Sheree North, who is no way near the same class.

Grable was getting a bit old and doesn't have a character to play - North isn't much of a performer, but doesn't have a character to play either. Compare it with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes a movie which has some similarities to this... two dames in a strange environment, meeting Tom Noonan and Charles Coburn. The lead gals were very different (Jane Russell would've been fab in this).

North does a dance towards the end and she's sensational - and you go "they should have had her doing that all the way through - just dancing".

And Johnson has no fun with the culture clash of showgirls at college. I mean, you think it would be obvious - show girls with street smarts clashing with boys with book smarts - but they do little with the situation.

Robert Cummings, normally made for this material, seems odd in a crew cut as a perenial student and there's no life in Tom Noonan.

Movie review - "Moon Over Miami" (1941) ***

 Ah, this is fun. It's in colour, it takes place in Miami, the leads are women out to nab a rich husband, they hang around a nightclub where there's production numbers

Betty Grable is very sweet and fun - too nice to be a genuine gold digger but since she's never going to actually be one it doesn't matter. Carole Landis is nice as her friend but she doesn't have a distinguishing character to play - she's just a blonde friend; it's a shame they couldn't have given her something individual to act.

Don Ameche and Robert Cummings are two of the best light comedians ever so the male department is well handled. Charlotte Greenwood and Jack Haley are the low rent third options - I think they were once famous.

The film stumbles a little in the third act - I think when Ameche pretends to be poor. But there's always a fun number. Greenwood is funny. Grable is a sweetheart.

Movie review - "Park Row" (1952) ***

One of the reasons people love Sam Fuller is once he finally established himself in Hollywood with The Steel Helmet he went and made this uncommercial tale, dedicated to American journalism. I watched it and thought, a story about wisecracking reporters in 1880s New York, thats the sort of thing Daryl F Zanuck would want to make as a musical for Betty Grable - and apparently he offered to fiance it if Fuller turned it into one.

And you know something? I think it still would've worked - Fuller still could have hit his story points. Instead he self financed, went with United Artists - he managed to get enough of a budget for a small street set, meaning a lot of cramped scenes and close ups and no stars (Gene Evans is the lead)

It's tight and fast and full of speeches and has such love for journalism it's endearing. The low budget does hurt this one though because Evans and his reporters can't go out and about that much reporting (too expensive). It also loses points for not being in color (I know why I'm allowed to wish it was in colour) and for having a finale where his rival publisher, a woman, gives him the win by giving up her paper.

It is well acted and entertaining.

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 something 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.

Book review - "The Films of Victor Mature" (2013) by James McKay

Victor Mature would be one of the least highly regarded stars of Hollywood's golden era - far too many musicals and costume pictures, with that haughty air of self satisfaction and muscular physique. But a closer look at his output reveals a surprising range: swashbucklers, westerns, musicals, Biblical epics, film noir, comedies, war flicks; he worked with filmmakers as capable as Hal Roach, Henry Hathaway, John Ford, Frank Borzage, Albert Broccoli, Neil Simon, and Cecil B de Mille, and featured in several classics, some camp (One Million Years BC) but others legitimate (Kiss of Death, My Darling Clementine) and a large number of "hidden gems".

Mature was also very endearing, extremely self deprecating about his abilities, funny and wry, with a good head on his shoulders: he enjoyed making money and hooking up with women, and was very skilled at both, although all those marriages dented his earnings; he managed to retire on his own terms a wealthy man and enjoyed a long retirement.

He actually deserves a full biography but until that comes along this isn't a bad substitute. McKay is a big Mature fan, and his work is very uncritical, but he at least has done some research and I enjoyed his passion. There is a solid biographical entry at the beginning and the fact that this is a film by film analysis mean some lesser known Mature works like Stella and Gambling House get some attention.

Movie review – “The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend” (1949) ***

Preston Sturges last film for a Hollywood studio was a deliberate attempt at making a box office hit: Daryl Zanuck gave him technicolour, Betty Grable at her box office peak, and a handsome budget. The resulting film lost money and isn’t particularly well remembered today.

It starts marvellously, with Grable in bright, animated form and very sexy as a saloon singer with a hot temper and quick to shoot her cheating boyfriend (Cesar Romero). She accidentally shoots a judge in the backside and hot tails it to a small town where she and her mate are mistaken for school teachers and she sets her cap at a rich miner (Rudy Vallee). So far so fun – a terrific set up, the action is bright and breezy, and Sturges can’t get enough scenes of Grable changing in and out of clothes.

 

But then it runs into trouble – Cesar Romero comes back, but instead of having him as a false love interest he’s the real love interest – which is troublesome since you know he and Grable have problems that will never reconcile (the ending makes a gag along these lines but it means the ending has hollow emotion). You keep expecting him to reform a la the Great McGinty but it doesn’t happen. 

 

Also there are these two over acting character actors as trouble some brothers, whose supposed death prompts the villain to want to hang Romeo and Vallee – but if he thinks his sons are dead that doesn’t make him that villainous, you feel sorry for the guy. So it lacks a real hero and villain, and heart (which the best Sturges films all had) – and the fact they impersonate school teachers isn’t really paid off. There’s a sort of funny teaching scene, and a sheriff checks if she’s a fugitive… but that’s about it. So it’s a real shame. Still, lots of racy dialogue and good energy.

Movie review – “Pin Up Girl” (1944) **1/2

By this stage 20th Century Fox knew that if they had Betty Grable in a musical all they needed was colour, a couple of talented support comics, a silly plot and some numbers. Her leading man in this is the famously anonymous Joe Harvey – he’s actually not that bad in an aw gee 50s sitcom kind of way, if not a movie star. The plot has Betty Grable romancing him (he’s a war hero) then pretending to be a secretary so he won’t think she’s a liar – he doesn’t recognise her because she wears glasses.

Zanuck must have known it was a lame set up but I guess they didn’t mind in war time. He threw in a very solid support cast – Eugene Palette, Martha Scott, Joe E. Brown. It has colour and movement and Grable. She doesn't show her legs that much.

Movie review - “Coney Island” (1943) ***

A Betty Grable musical but the plot is more driven by George Montgomery, who arrives in Coney Island during the 1890s and sets about establishing himself as a musical impresario by outwitting his former partner and making a star of Grable. Betty doesn’t do much plot wise except stamp her foot, look indignant and be fought over, but she does lots of numbers (one in blackface, unfortunately) and is very pretty. Montgomery is terrific, confident and wise-cracky in a sub Clark Gable way – surely he would have become a bigger star had war service not interrupted his career. Good support from Cesar Romeo (the perennial other man), Phil Silvers and Charles Winninger. Some of the musical numbers seem to go on forever.

Movie review – “I Wake Up Screaming” (1941) ***1/2 (warning: spoilers)

It’s odd at first to see Betty Grable in a non-colour non-musical for 20th Century Fox, but then this was at the beginning of her stardom reign. She’s very effective, though, playing a part very much within her range – a sweet, loving if none-too-bright stenographer whose sister (Carole Landis) is murdered. The police suspect her boyfriend (Victor Mature) who Grable has a yen for – she ends up helping him escape from the cops and solving the mystery.

This actually would have been a better movie had Grable been centre stage, investigating as a plucky heroine, and with us never quite sure if Mature was innocent - but instead hero duties are split between Grable and Mature and we never really suspect him. Which is a shame since Mature would have made a good villain – he had an egotistical, sinister, charming quality.

As it is this is still pretty good. 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' plays incessantly on the soundtrack. The black and white photography is stunning – film noir before film noir officially came into being: nightclubs, police interrogation rooms, dark alleyways, dingy diners, cinemas, swimming pools, apartments, stairways. As a studio picture, it benefits from a terrific supporting cast including the ever-reliable Elisha Cook Jnr and the magnificent Laird Cregar. The scene where Mature wakes up and Cregar is watching him sleep is chilling. Landis is good, too – her performance has extra resonance because she herself died young, a suicide.

Mature and Betty have good chemistry, which spilled over into real life for a time. The scene where they go for a night swim together (New York is a town of a lot of 24 hour activities in this film – late night movies, diners) makes it clear they’re really into each other physically in a way many Hollywood stories of the era didn’t. There’s an unfortunate moment where he tells her that when a man really loves a woman he doesn’t want to plaster her all over the place, he wants to keep her for herself (i.e. “stay at home and look after the kids while I go out and have affairs”). And I laughed where the cops give Mature five minutes alone with Cregar at the end because they figured he’s owed it. Good old Hollywood law enforcement!

Movie review – “Song of the Islands” (1942) ***

For an actor best remembered for historical epics and film noir, Victor Mature made a surprisingly large number of musicals. This might have been because early in his career he did a stint on Broadway opposite Gertrude Lawrence in Moss Hart’s Lady in the Dark. So during his career he romanced Esther Williams, Rita Hayworth, Betty Hutton and, here, Betty Grable.

 

Mature looked a little funny when he was younger – he hadn’t grown into his looks, it’s like they’re painted on. But he plays very well with Grable – they dated each other in real life for a while, and they certainly have an easy rapport. Their chemistry is one of the best things about the film.

 

Despite four writers being credited, the story for this is very slight. Grable and Mature are the children of rival landowners in Hawaii. They break up for some reason around the end of the second act – do you reckon they get back together? It’s on par with the level of Elvis Presley movies that came along twenty years later. 

 

But there’s plenty of colourful photography, island settings, songs and dance numbers, wacky natives (ha ha they’re fat ha ha). Mature doesn’t sing fortunately, but Jack Oakie (the comic relief second male lead – the Phil Silvers part) has a number.

Radio review - Lux - “Wabash Avenue” (1950) **

A remake of Coney Island (it hit cinemas only seven years after the original did - the old days weren't that original) isn't as much fun to listen to without being able to see the colour and dancing and Betty's legs. Betty is likeable enough as the singer squabbled over by some competing men, including Victor Mature - who is engaging but not as good as George Montgomery (a sort of imitation Clarke Gable type who was really good in the original). There are some songs and a comic Irishman.

Radio review – Lux – “Coney Island (1944) ***

You miss the technicolour and crowd scenes that livened up the Betty Grable musical, not to mention Phil Silvers, but the cast of this one could easily have slotted into the same story had it been shot for Paramount: Dorothy Lamour, Alan Ladd and Chester Morris. Alan Ladd speaks in a faster, more clipped tone than we’ve become used to but he’s clearly putting a lot into it and it’s a shame he never got the chance to act in something like this on screen. Lamour even sings some of the same songs from the film, including ‘Cuddle Up a Little Closer’.

Movie review - "Pin Up Girl" (1944) **1/2

The plots of Betty Grable movies were never the strongest but this ones particularly weak - she's a typist who pretends to be a singing staring order to impress a war hero (someone called Joe Harvey, proving that Betty Grable movies needed a decent male lead). He doesn't notice that the typist and singing star are two different people - because she wears glasses. Uh-huh. And that's about it. To compensate the studio shove the film wall-to-wall with musical numbers and novelty acts - there's Joe E Brown, Martha Raye, some roller skaters and tap dancers, and elaborate musical numbers (very well done with clever use of cranes a la Busby Berkeley). Its like a good old fashioned crappy Ziegfeld follies, complete with "turns" from guest stars and lots of chorus girls.

Book review - "George Raft" by Lewis Yablonsky

George Raft has one of the great tragic acting careers - did any actor make so many bad career decisions? In the world of karma, I guess what goes around comes around - if you're unusually lucky as Raft was, you're going to be unusually unlucky. Actually, you can't put it down to luck - I think Raft deserved his early success. He had a rough childhood but worked hard at his boxing and later dancing - he was obviously a great dancer, put in the hard yards, worked his way up; even though he wasn't the best actor in the world or even conventionally handsome he could move and had a sinister presence; he was three things in real life - a great dancer, a ladies man and an associate of gangsters - which all helped him make a hit on screen. Scarface and a flipping coin helped make him a star, and he was put under contract to Paramount.

Few of his early 30s films post-Scarface are remembered that well, except for Bolero but a couple of his late 30s efforts seem to be revived fairly often, e.g. Spawn of the Sea. (As one writer pointed out, because he had such a striking image he enjoyed a high public profile, probably greater than his box office standing deserved). Despite turning down Dead End Raft's luck still held when he went over to Warner Bros and made some strong films there. But then came the idiocy - turning down High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon, apparently also Double Indemnity and Casablanca (though from what I understand he was only considered for the latter). Then to compound it he left Warners in a huff - a studio who knew exactly how to cast him - and freelanced, making very little that was memorable and spending all his money ("I had to keep tipping people, I have an image"; also financial troubles meant he missed an opportunity to invest in the Flamingo Hotel in Vegas, which could have made him a millionaire). OK maybe it was rough the Poms didn't let him in the country in the late 60s but he went out of his way to befriend Bugs Siegel even after knowing what sort of person Siegel was.

This is an extremely sympathetic bio, well written with great interviews with people like Howard Hawks, Jack Lemmon, Dean Martin, the Zanucks and Edward G Robinson as well as Raft itself. The author goes easy on Raft but still can't hide the fact that Raft was a big headed idiot who made the fatal mistake of many film stars, i.e. thinking he knew what he was doing, instead of working with the best people he possibly could have. His life would make a great movie - it has been made into a film, the not very good George Raft Story, but it could be done better than that (even if the ending is kind of glum): his early adventures with gangsters, his friendship with Bugsy Siegel, teaching Jack Lemmon (in drag) and Joe E Brown to tango on the set of Some Like It Hot; working at a casino in Cuba when Castro took over; being used by Daryl Zanuck as a front to make a film just to keep Bella Darvi busy when in fact there was no film (and Zanuck didn't tell Raft) etc. It was a great ride, and Raft can certainly never complain he hasn't been to enough places and had enough women. I just wish he'd been able to hang on to a bit more of his money.

NB for those interested in reading more about Raft, check out his FBI files (mostly concerning his relationship with gangsters) here.