OVP: The Dolly Sisters (1945)

Film: The Dolly Sisters (1945)

Stars: Betty Grable, John Payne, June Haver, SZ Sakall

Director: Irving Cummings

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Song-"I Can't Begin to Tell You")

Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2022 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different Classical Hollywood star who made their name in the early days of television.  This month, our focus is on John Payne: click here to learn more about Mr. Payne (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

World War II is a fascinating time frame in Hollywood partially due to the impact that it would have on the legends of some actors' careers.  Certain stars, specifically Jimmy Stewart & Henry Fonda, ended up having some of the most fruitful years of their career after the War, using their service careers as a way to launch the next stage of their stardom.  Other actors like John Wayne never served, in part out of fear that the opportunities (and plum paydays) that were there for them before the war might be taken away if they stopped working.  John Payne was somewhere in the middle of these two.  Payne did not see active battle, but did serve briefly as a flight instructor for the Army Air Corps until September 1944.  Payne, though, wasn't the star that Fonda or Stewart had been before, and when he came back to Hollywood, his options were limited.  His first major film after the end of the war was once again him playing second fiddle to one of the Fox lot's leading ladies (Betty Grable).

(Spoilers Ahead) The Dolly Sisters is about two sisters Jenny (Grable) and Rosie Dolly (Haver) who are trying to break into show business.  Thanks to a chance meeting with a songwriter named Harry Fox (Payne), they meet Oscar Hammerstein and suddenly become major stars as a sister act.  The only problem is that Harry & Jenny are in love, and Harry is jealous of his wife being more famous than him, and wants her to perform with him on the road.  This doesn't happen, though-Jenny won't abandon her sister, and as a result she & Harry divorce during World War I.  While Harry is off fighting, and eventually becoming famous, Jenny becomes a gambling addict & gets involved in a car crash that nearly kills her.  The film ends with the two of them, despite Harry having a girlfriend (who conveniently dumps him when she sees he still loves Jenny), singing onstage with Rosie, a happily ever after for all three.

The Dolly Sisters is based on real-life sisters who had a decidedly different life.  Their real life was far more scandalous than a movie in 1945 would allow.  In real life Jenny never reunited with Harry Fox, and instead spent much of the 1920's romancing a series of monarchs (which is only briefly alluded to in this movie), and both sisters broke up their act (sometimes for show to sell tickets) and occasionally swapped lovers.  Jenny ended up marrying again, but the depression following a car accident caused her to tailspin, and she committed suicide in 1941 by hanging herself.  Rosie never really got over this, retreating from the public eye, attempting suicide herself in 1962 (unsuccessfully) and dying of a heart attack in 1970.

Suffice it to say, these women are fascinating, but this movie isn't.  Without the ability to show what these sisters' painful personal lives were really like, the movie feels adrift, and Grable & Haver (who purportedly didn't like each other in real life) have very little chemistry together.  Worst of the trio, though, is Payne.  I'm hoping in our final two weeks we get to a John Payne performance that I enjoy, but man is his Harry a charmless ass.  He basically blackmails his successful wife into giving up her career so she can support his unsuccessful one...which causes her to go into a deep depression that nearly ruins her life, and yet we're supposed to be happy they end up together?  I don't think so, and Payne doesn't see to be able to find any sort of personality in this cad of a love interest.  The film's score is nothing to write home about (Grable & Haver join the cavalcade of classic film stars who did blackface with the horrendously racist "The Darktown Strutters Ball"), even the slumber-inducing ballad "I Can't Begin to Tell You" which won an Oscar nomination in 1946 (not sure what the deal is with it coming a year after the film's release) is totally forgettable.