My Blue Heaven (1950)

Film: My Blue Heaven (1950)
Stars: Betty Grable, Dan Dailey, David Wayne, Jane Wyatt, Mitzi Gaynor, Una Merkel, Louise Beavers
Director: Henry Koster
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2020 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress known as an iconic "film sex symbol."  This month, our focus is on Betty Grable-click here to learn more about Ms. Grable (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Last week we had our first of two pictures with Betty Grable and Dan Dailey.  Grable's career in many ways got an extra dose of life support with Dailey, as our star by this point had entered her thirties and while she was still gorgeous, wasn't the fresh ingenue that she had been in her Down Argentine Way days.  However, Mother Wore Tights was a huge success, and that meant that the studio was willing to exhaust Grable's time with Dan Dailey as much as possible, teaming them four times.  This is arguably the least well-known of their pairings, and we're watching it A) because it is, of course, a Betty Grable movie and this series is about finding both the well-known & the lesser-celebrated pictures she made work and B) because When My Baby Smiles at Me, their more lauded film, is not available in any fashion whatsoever on streaming or rental.  Here we have Grable once again playing an entertainer, part of a husband-and-wife that is having trouble adding to their family act.

(Spoilers Ahead) Grable and Dailey are Kitty and Jack Moran, a song-and-dance team who are successful radio stars.  At the beginning of the film we find Kitty at the doctor's office (one of multiple times that the film makes a point of showing off Grable's legs), and she tells her husband on the air that they are expecting.  Afterward, though, Grable loses the baby after getting into a car accident, and she finds out it's unlikely she'll be able to carry a child to term.  The remainder of the movie is a series of madcap events combined with genuinely sad moments as Kitty & Jack try to make both a burgeoning television career and an adoption process work at the same time.

My Blue Heaven could be charming, and could be about a generally under-discussed taboo subject (for the 1950's): infertility and miscarriage.  It's heartbreaking watching the first scene after Grable has to put on a brave face in front of a careless doctor, who is more concerned about her "smiling" for her husband than the anguish she's going through, and Grable, no one's definition of a feminist, manages to find a way to make the scene feel as difficult for the audience as it is for her character.

But My Blue Heaven has too little of this moment of concern and unkindness in Grable's Kitty.  Instead, it's kind of gross.  The musical numbers are instantly forgettable, and as a result you're left mostly with the story where you have Grable's Kitty frequently more concerned with her husband than with the fact that she went through something deeply traumatic, and no one seems to give a damn about how she feels.  She has to lose not one, but two children as the movie progresses thanks to the careless actions of her husband and his buddy Walter (Wayne), and is forced to cheekily look the other way when her husband kisses dancer Gloria (Gaynor, in her film debut).  The film's sexual politics basically make Kitty just a vessel for failed fertility, never minding that her husband is a cad, scoundrel, and a jerk, and she'd be better off shipping him to the curb.

The film's racial politics are brutal too.  Louise Beavers in the film has the thankless role of Selma, the Morans' maid.  Beavers at this point had been a longtime character actress, who had played in such classics as Imitation of Life and Holiday Inn, and was about to become TV's third (and last) Beulah, taking over after Hattie McDaniel left the series due to the breast cancer that would eventually kill her.  Selma is only in a handful of scenes, but two of them are rough to watch.  She is yelled at by Dan Dailey when the couple loses the baby they have just adopted because Walter has thrown a party to celebrate, and the adoption agency thinks this is indicative of the kind of people Jack & Kitty are.  This is after they were forgiving of Walter and the party guests, letting them off the hook for utter foolishness (the people are bringing home a child-maybe it's a terrible idea to have a loud party with the infant); Selma, the poor black woman in his employ instead gets Jack's anger.  This happens later when the couple's other adopted child (whom they purchased illegally) is retrieved by the authorities from them, and despite her following the law, Selma is berated by Kitty & Jack's colleagues.  This mistreatment of a black character wasn't unusual for a film in 1950, but considering it's billed as a frothy comedy and the movie tries to reiterate how he Morans' are decent, kind-hearted folks, it's telling that the one person they treat like crap for most of the film is the only person of color.  Next week we'll head into an actual crowdpleaser, as Betty Grable steps away from Dan Dailey and meets the woman who would succeed her as the biggest star at the Fox lot.