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.

OVP: Tin Pan Alley (1940)

Film: Tin Pan Alley (1940)

Stars: Alice Faye, Betty Grable, Jack Oakie, John Payne

Director: Walter Lang

Oscar History: 1 nomination/1 win (Best Scoring*)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 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.

We're going to start our month devoted to John Payne by taking a look at his pre-war films.  Payne's career didn't start at Fox, but for all-intents-and-purposes it might as well have.  He made a few films at Warner Brothers in the 1930's, but none of them amounted to anything, and by the end of the decade he was finding himself going back to New York to work on Broadway.  His contract with Fox, though, would dominate most of the 1940's, and at the beginning of that time, it was really focused on musicals.  We oftentimes think of MGM as the home of most of the musicals of this era, and indeed, they made most of the classic ones.  But Fox was making a massive business at the time in musicals, and Payne could sing.  The only problem for Payne was when it came to Fox & musicals, there were only two names that mattered: Alice Faye and Betty Grable.  Both of these women we've actually explored in past seasons of Saturdays with the Stars (which makes me stunned I haven't seen this film), but it's a good indication of the kind of career that Payne was enjoying heading into World War II...playing second fiddle to more important female stars on the Fox lot.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about two business partners, Harry Calhoun (Oakie) and his handsome songwriting pal Skeets Harrigan (Payne), who have a hit song that they need a singer for, and they meet a sister vaudeville act in Katie (Faye) and Lily Blane (Grable).  Skeets and Katie hit it off right away, forming a romance, but obstacles keeps getting in the way, first Skeets' ambition (at one point "accidentally" dropping a glass of wine on Lily so that Katie would get to sing their song) and later by true accident (when a more famous singer coopts the hit song that Skeets promises to Katie).  When World War I breaks out, Harry & Skeets enlist, but can't help wanting to get back to see their girls one more time, and in the process, Katie unceremoniously dumps her fiancee, and instead rejoins Skeets, with promises of more success (and surely love) in their future after the war.

Fox musicals, unlike MGM musicals, are not exactly high-budget works of art, but instead they are an excuse to have excellent singers belt out classics.  None of the four leads are having their voices dubbed (which was more common in MGM musicals as well), and some of them (specifically Faye, whom I am a huge fan of) are genuinely superb singers.  This one doesn't have as many memorable songs as you'd hope, with the best being "Moonlight Bay" sung by Faye, and there's not a lot stringing them together other than a bit of Hollywood propaganda (lots of patriotism).  As a result, that Oscar statue, even in a year of less-than-inspired competitors, feels a bit cheap (just give Pinocchio two music statues-it more than deserves it!).

Payne is fine here.  As I mentioned above and in our biography kickoff earlier this week, Payne's career as a film star wasn't bereft of leading roles, but it was frequently a look at an actor who largely was there to make his more popular leading ladies look good.  He does that here, looking handsome, but largely just being a place for Alice Faye's soulful eyes and heavenly voice to project onto...in many ways he resembled someone like Robert Taylor who was gorgeous, but didn't have a lot of opportunity to act.  This was most of his career before the war, appearing as a romantic lead for Faye and Sonja Henie in hit Fox musicals.  Next week, we're going to stick with a similarly-plotted film, one that even has one of this week's leading ladies, and talk about how World War II offered Payne a new role...though it might well have hurt his career.

Saturdays with the Stars Season 2 Finale

Two of our legendary Stars of 2020,
Sophia Loren & Jayne Mansfield

Yesterday with The Three Musketeers we hit the finale of our second season of "Saturdays with the Stars," and before we start the new year (and a new season, devoted to Hitchcock's leading ladies), I wanted to take time to celebrate another season, and one I treat as a success.  We never missed a Saturday (there was one close call, but that was really it-being stuck at home made at least this part of 2020 easier), and I saw a lot of new movies & now have a better understanding of twelve stars, some of which I knew next to nothing about before this year.  And I hope you learned something as well!

It's always fascinating to me to focus on an actor's career, rather than as we typically do in film discussions on a director's.  Watching these women, particularly under the guise of "Sex Symbols" was intriguing to me because Hollywood had different attitudes toward these beautiful women as the public began to find their sexuality passé, or eventually, absent.  It is kind of heartbreaking to watch someone like a Jayne Mansfield or Raquel Welch, who clearly chose poorly at select moments of their careers & paid the price for it, and fascinating to watch a figure like Sophia Loren or Ann-Margret who was able to rise above their studio-forced persona and eventually gain mainstream critical recognition in their lifetimes.

Every film I watched this year was a movie I was seeing for the very first time, as well, so once again I was blown away by the expanses of Classic Hollywood, rich with westerns and noir and musicals that I'd never been exposed to.  Next year we'll do our third and final tour of Classic Hollywood actresses (after that, if we continue the series, we're going to either add men or a more modern element for a fourth season), so we'll continue to mine this well, but before we do that, let's hand out some superlatives for this year's leading ladies.

Favorite Performance from Each Star

January: Jean Harlow-Red Dust

February: Betty Grable-I Wake Up Screaming

March: Lena Horne-Cabin in the Sky

April: Rita Hayworth-Separate Tables

May: Lana Turner-The Postman Always Rings Twice

June: Marilyn Monroe-The Misfits

July: Jayne Mansfield-Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

August: Sophia Loren-Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

September: Gina Lollobrigida-Come September

October: Nancy Kwan-The World of Suzie Wong

November: Ann-Margret-Carnal Knowledge

December: Raquel Welch-The Three Musketeers

5 Favorite Actresses of the Year (Alphabetical)

Jean Harlow

Rita Hayworth

Sophia Loren

Marilyn Monroe

Lana Turner

5 Favorite Performances of the Year (Alphabetical)

Rita Hayworth, Separate Tables

Sophia Loren, Two Women

Sophia Loren, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Marilyn Monroe, The Misfits

Lana Turner, The Postman Always Rings Twice

10 Favorite Films of the Year (Alphabetical)

Cabin in the Sky

Cover Girl

I Wake Up Screaming

Imitation of Life

Libeled Lady

The Misfits

The Postman Always Rings Twice

Red Dust

Separate Tables

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Top 10 Performances of the Year (Not By Our Leading Ladies)

Clark Gable, The Misfits

David Niven, Separate Tables

Eli Wallach, The Misfits

Ethel Waters, Cabin in the Sky

Eve Arden, Cover Girl

Jennifer Jones, Beat the Devil

Juanita Moore, Imitation of Life

Laird Cregar, I Wake Up Screaming

Susan Kohner, Imitation of Life

Thelma Ritter, The Misfits

OVP: How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)

Film: How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)
Stars: Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall, Rory Calhoun, William Powell
Director: Jean Negulesco
Oscar History: 1 nominaton (Best Costume Design)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 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.

Despite having been a major star for over ten years, even in the early 1950's, Betty Grable's pictures were still hits.  She had been in the Top 10 biggest box office draws of every year since 1942, and in 1950, despite a relatively ripe age of 34 (which was a bigger deal in the '50's than it would be now), she was still the highest-grossing actress in America.  However, her star started to fall apart when she demanded that Fox acknowledge that she'd been a consistent draw by requesting more artistic freedom and a giant paycheck.  This led to Grable missing out on a big opportunity-Fox's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which was a huge hit and gave a boost to the woman that was expected to succeed Grable as the top actress on the Fox lot, Marilyn Monroe.  Grable eventually came back to Fox, but they had a bit of a punishment for her in their next picture-casting her as a gold-digger opposite Monroe and Lauren Bacall, both of whom were a decade younger than Grable.

(Spoilers Ahead) How to Marry a Millionaire is a pretty slight film, and one that focuses on three women looking to get rich husbands: scheming Schatze (Bacall), naive Loco (Grable), and ditzy Pola (Monroe).  The three find a posh Manhattan apartment, and start selling off furniture in the hopes of finding a rich husband, but one-by-one they fall not for the actual millionaires like William Powell's JD Hanley, but instead for lumberjacks or criminals, or in Schatze's (the character most determined to stick to the plan) case, Tom, a man she assumes to be a grocery store clerk but who is instead wealthier than any of the men they pursue.  All of the women end up marrying for love, and in Schatze's case, accidentally it comes along with $200 million.

The film is not, unfortunately, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, a picture I adored.  It's considerably drier, with only the three leading ladies adding anything to these happenings (Powell is a bore, which is a damned shame coming from the guy who made The Thin Man and My Man Godfrey so bubbly).  It's still fun, of course.  Bacall is ballsy (and gets a great joke about the "old guy in The African Queen" at one point), and Monroe is always fun to watch, and even Grable gets to have some game moments with a man who is looking to have an affair, but there's not enough laughs here.  We don't really get a sense for who these women are other than cartoons, and there aren't memorable musical numbers or someone who is as willing as Jane Russell is to commit to the cartoons the women are asked to play.

Grable's month, as a result, ends with a movie with some promise but ultimately a picture that flirts with a 2-star rating even if it's more a questionable three.  I'll admit to not finding much in Grable's extensive filmography this month to lend to her, disappointing after the joys of Jean Harlow in January.  Grable's career quickly petered out after this, the last significant picture of her time in Hollywood.  After Millionaire she turned down another role that would go to Monroe (There's No Business Like Show Business), something she was fine with; despite press at the time, Monroe & Grable got along famously, to the point where Grable requested her for what would be her last film How to Be Very, Very Popular (the Monroe part would go to Sheree North).  Grable would be turned down for the lead role in 1956's Guys and Dolls, making her quit the industry, and then became a headliner in Vegas until her death in 1973 of lung cancer at the age of 56.  Next month, we will move to a different star of the 1940's who would also find herself in the 1950's looking to Las Vegas, but not before having one of the most eclectic (and unfair) careers of any star in Classic Hollywood.

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.

OVP: Mother Wore Tights (1947)

Film: Mother Wore Tights (1947)
Stars: Betty Grable, Dan Dailey, Mona Freeman, Connie Marshall
Director: Walter Lang
Oscar History: 3 nominations/1 win (Best Scoring*, Best Original Song-"You Do", Cinematography)
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.

By 1947 Betty Grable had reached the peak of her fame, and was basically printing money for Fox every time she got in front of the camera.  Even on a film where Grable was pregnant with her daughter Jessica, that wasn't enough for the studio system to wear her down, and with Mother Wore Tights we get her first of four pairings with actor Dan Dailey.  This was because in 1947 Mother Wore Tights was a huge success-it was the top grossing Fox release of the year, and at the time Grable's biggest hit.  We will be doing two films in a row of Grable's pairings with Dailey (though, thanks to When My Baby Smiles at Me not being available pretty much anywhere for viewing, not the two I had initially intended), to see why the two were such a well-liked cinematic match.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers on Myrtle McKinley (Grable), a young woman who is destined for business college, but instead ends up being hired as a chorus girl in a vaudeville troupe, where she meets Frank (Dailey), a bit of a scalawag who does the same tired comedy routine each night to less-and-less effect.  After some initial misunderstandings, Myrtle & Frank join together to create a successful duo, though it's clear that she's carrying him more than the other way around.  Weirdly, though, that's not the focus-it's instead on how their successful career keeps getting in the way of their quiet home life, where their two daughters Iris (Freeman) and Miriam (Marshall) must cope with having their parents away so often, and eventually, how their parents' "crude" acts & occupations interfere with Iris's pursuit of a posh businessman's son.

As we're three movies into this month, I'm going to confess something-I'm not loving Betty Grable so far.  I get the sunshine appeal, but while I loved that with Alice Faye (who always made sure her characters were smarter than the trope), Grable plays her characters for laughs and for ease.  As a result her daffy blonde doesn't become savvier than her male costars eventually, but just stays obedient and subservient to them.  In many ways Grable is the antithesis of another actress who dominated the 1940's, Bette Davis, who wouldn't be caught dead taking second fiddle to any man...and I love Bette Davis.  I'm hopeful that Grable will be able to win me over sometime in her last two pictures, but her roles have a level of domesticity that borders on the boring.

Nowhere is that clearer than in Mother Wore Tights, a title that is telling because it's subtly shading Grable for being both a matron and for being sexy (that's a joke that's told a couple of times in the picture).  Never mind that she's more talented than her costar Dailey, who is dull in this part (making me wish I could see When My Baby Smiles even more as Dailey infamously got the Oscar nomination most people thought would go to Humphrey Bogart in Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and after seeing Dailey act in a similar picture, I'm flummoxed as to how Bogart's landmark turn could have been ignored in such a way).  The script, though, is so conservative and ridiculously quaint that the film ages instantly, probably not even being at home in the 1950's, much less the 2010's.  The idea of classism and feminism's answers being acquiescing to the rich males is absurd and wrongheaded.

The film won three Oscar nominations, including a victory for Best Scoring, but I wasn't onboard with any of these.  The cinematography is fine, if never noteworthy (I feel like they were commending the movie for its use of color for the sets & costumes than any trick of the lighting), while the musical numbers are forgettable.  The main track of "You Do" is sung twice in the picture (by Dailey and then at the end by Freeman), but it's so inconsequential to the earlier plot you don't get why it's being retread other than to help its Oscar chances.  The entire score is forgettable, quite frankly, and while I get how it won (considering the box office & the thin slate of musicals from 1947 it would have been my prediction in that lineup), I'm hopeful there's at least one hidden treasure in a slate of films where I haven't seen any of them.  Because Mother Wore Tights is certainly no treasure.

I Wake Up Screaming (1941)

Film: I Wake Up Screaming (1941)
Stars: Betty Grable, Victor Mature, Carole Landis, Laird Cregar
Director: H. Bruce Humberstone
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 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.

Obviously when it comes to creating a list of 12 famous sex symbols of the Classical Hollywood era, you're going to have to make cuts.  Hollywood is littered with beautiful women, oftentimes ones who are only appreciated (especially in their era) for their beauty, and so while I am very happy with the twelve women we'll be profiling this year, there were cuts I really wanted to include.  Toward the top of that list was Carole Landis.  Landis, almost completely forgotten today, was the sort of star that almost became a superstar in her era.  She starred in two films with Betty Grable in 1941, both today's I Wake Up Screaming and Moon Over Miami (both big hits), but unlike Grable, she didn't turn into a supernova as a result of her time at Fox.  This is almost entirely due to the casting couch, as Landis was sleeping with studio chief Darryl Zanuck, and when that affair fizzled, so did her career.  Landis would go from being a headliner in movies that might rival someone as legendary as Betty Grable to, at the end of her life just six years later, making Poverty Row films & committing suicide at the age of 29.  So today, while obviously we continue our look at the career of Betty Grable, I also wanted to acknowledge Landis, who herself was a sex symbol that Hollywood never gave the respect she craved.

(Spoilers Ahead) I Wake Up Screaming is a 1940's noir and as such, there's a lot of plot, so I'll try to summarize this as succinctly as possible.  We open with a beautiful murdered model named Vicky (Landis), who has in death become a sort of perverse tabloid sensation.  Initially we flashback both through visions from her promoter Frankie (Mature) and her younger sister Jill (Grable).  They're telling the police about Vicky's life before she died, but something is off in their story, and the police seem to know it.  We learn that Vicky was basically just a waitress with a pretty face but Frankie turned her into something of a local star, and she was about to head to Hollywood to use her newfound notoriety to translate into something more substantial.  The police are following both Jill & Frankie, particularly a portly, creepy-seeming detective named Ed Cornell (Cregar), who Jill remembered stalking she and Vicky before Vicky's death.  Cornell seems determined to pin the crime on Frankie, whom we're expecting is innocent, but the film's writers do a good enough job to ensure that we don't automatically discount him as the killer.  We find out eventually that it was the doorman who killed Vicky, but also that Cornell knew he was the killer the whole time.

This is where the film takes its best, and most shocking detour.  Cornell at this point has been super suspicious, but it wasn't clear why, and it felt like the directors were trying heavily to imply he was the one who really killed Vicky, and was trying to pin the crime on Frankie to get out of the crime.  What actually happened was that Cornell had been obsessed with Vicky since she was a waitress, visiting her and promising her a better life, but when Frankie actually delivered on that life, Cornell never forgave him.  We enter Cornell's apartment, and it's covered with framed photos of Vicky's various modeling shoots, a man obsessed with a dead woman whom he came close to securing for himself, but then had Frankie break him away.  In his mind, it was Frankie who killed Vicky because he took her away from him, never minding that of course Vicky had an actual murderer whom he let roam free.

This twist is awesome, and one I didn't see coming, and kind of makes the film.  It's short (82 minutes), and other than Cregar there's no truly spellbinding acting in this film, but no one is bad either, and even thankless roles like those given to Mature & Grable come out all right.  But the script is so compact, and really fun, and that ending is so twisted it's kind of hard not to love it.  I watched as Mature entered Cornell's apartment assuming he was in on the crime, and instead I got the sort of ending that I'd expect from a noir thriller in the 1990's, not in the 1940's where literally a film like Detour you have to have a fake ending just to get past the censors.

Grable rarely did drama, either before or after this, so it's interesting to see her outside of the typical rom-coms and musical numbers that would become her stock-in-trade.  She's good, though a bit mousy for my taste, and overshadowed by Landis (who gets the better part).  Landis does her best Ann Sheridan impression (Sheridan would have been an awesome Vicky), and is memorable despite being dead for most of the movie.  We won't be profiling Moon Over Miami (anyone who has seen in it can chime in in the comments, though), but if this is what happens when Grable was opposite female costars I get why she would spend most of the next decade not sharing the spotlight with other actresses.  Next week we'll jump significantly further into Grable's career, when she was the highest-paid woman in America and Landis would be near death's door.

OVP: Down Argentine Way (1940)

Film: Down Argentine Way (1940)
Stars: Don Ameche, Betty Grable, Carmen Miranda, Charlotte Greenwood, J. Carrol Naish
Director: Irving Cummings
Oscar History: 3 nominations (Best Cinematography, Art Direction, Original Song-"Down Argentine Way")
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 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.

Betty Grable was no one's idea of an overnight success in Hollywood if you were willing to do the research.  During the earliest parts of her career, she hopped from studio to studio in hopes of establishing herself as a dancer and an actress.  However, she couldn't make it at Paramount or RKO, and by 1939 (at the age of only 23-her mother lied about her age to get her more mature parts early in her career), Grable would have been forgiven for assuming that mainstream success wasn't coming her way.  However, a well-reviewed supporting part in the Broadway production of DuBarry was a Lady led her to get a contract with Fox, and fate took a hand when Alice Faye, then Fox's most important leading woman, had to drop out of her next picture Down Argentine Way, with Grable coming in to substitute for Faye.  The film was a smash hit, becoming one of Fox's biggest pictures of the year, and not only cemented Grable as the new star on the Fox lot, but also sealed the fate of Alice Faye's career (you can read more about this here, as Faye was one of our stars last year) and launched the unusual career of Grable's costar Carmen Miranda as well.

(Spoilers Ahead) Like so many of the Fox musicals of this era, the plot here is a bit of a hodgepodge.  We have Ricardo Quintano (Ameche), a handsome horse salesman, who goes to Argentina to sell some of his father's prize steeds, but only if he promises not to sell to any member of his arch-nemesis's family the Crawfords.  Naturally when he gets there, not only does Ricardo accidentally sell one of the horses to a Crawford, he falls in love with his father's rival's daughter Glenda (Grable), before choosing his father over Glenda.  However, their love can't be denied and so the two start to see each other secretly, and then eventually prove to Ricardo's father that their love is more important than an old feud, and that he should stop just selling horses and get back into racing them as well.

And also, Carmen Miranda is randomly there.

The film is about the best encapsulation of Fox musicals of the era, in both the good and the bad.  Fox, unlike MGM's perfection machine, was more likely to just throw together a series of musical numbers and hope that they stick.  Down Argentine Way, therefore, is technically a love story but there's not much stakes in it-you don't really get to know Glenda or Ricardo, and we're just supposed to assume that since they're beautiful and young that love is the only course of action for the two.  Ameche & Grable are both fun in these parts, but it's hard to imagine how Grable became a star off of such a vehicle other than her technicolor blonde-ness and enviable gams; this series is focused on finding what's below the surface of some of Hollywood's most iconic beauties, but Grable doesn't give us much to root for in Glenda, and quite frankly she doesn't have the instant depth and charm of Alice Faye (but it's early in her film career so I'll hope for the best in coming weeks).

The musical numbers are still fun though.  While Miranda is literally playing herself (like she'd pretty much do her entire film career), man does she come in and steal this whole film with her trio of musical numbers, particularly the first onscreen use of her signature song "Mamae Eu Quero."  By the end of the decade, Miranda & Grable (both in their breakout roles here) would become two of the highest-paid entertainers in the world, so Down Argentine Way certainly had a major place in film history even if it's pretty slight (if harmless).

The film won three Oscar nominations.  The Cinematography is glorious Technicolor (Grable looks ravishing, as does Ameche for that matter), but it's not technically interesting, particularly compared to some of the color work that was happening in films like The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind just the previous year.  The same goes for the Art Direction-the interior shots all feel like vacant lots, and one wonders if this simply got the nomination based on how much money Fox spent filming in both Argentina and New York (to accommodate Miranda's Broadway engagements).  The best of the three nominations is Song, the title track which is sung in the picture by Grable & Ameche, and features Grable doing a saucy dance number (though with her legs covered-the bare legs come later in the picture).  The song recurs throughout the film, and is a bit of an unofficial theme to all of the musical numbers, but while it was cute, it doesn't really jump-off-the-screen the way that Miranda's numbers will halfway through the movie.

Overall, I left the first Grable outing a bit underwhelmed, but since she's the rare Saturday Star to get five films in one month (only in a Leap Year!), we have plenty of time to get better acquainted with the actress. Next week we'll take a rare detour for Grable (who specialized in romance and musicals) into the universe of film noir, and one of Grable's only dramatic roles.

Saturdays with the Stars: Betty Grable

Each month of 2020 we will be looking at the movies of some of Hollywood's most famous sex symbols, women whose intense beauty frequently overshadowed their filmic careers.  Last month, we kicked off our series with a look at Jean Harlow, perhaps the prototypical sex symbol for modern cinema.  This month we move on to a woman whose name is synonymous with her appearance, whose filmic career (which was sizable) is dwarfed by her status as a pin-up girl during World War II and the legs that, to quote the lady herself, were the "two reasons she became a star."  This month, our star is Betty Grable.

Born Elizabeth Ruth Grable, the young Betty traveled with her stage mother mom Lillian to Hollywood at the age of 12 to try and make a living in the wake of the recession.  Lillian lied about her daughter's age to get her parts, but it worked-she received chorus work at Fox before being discovered by Samuel Goldwyn, who made Grable (along with fellow future stars like Lucille Ball, Paulette Goddard, & Ann Sothern) one of his "Goldwyn Girls," giving her a significant part in the opening number of Whoopee!.  However, Goldwyn didn't have enough work for her, and let her go, and she had uninspired stints at RKO and Paramount before the decade ended, when she was brought onto Fox, and lucked into the lead role in Down Argentine Way after Alice Faye had to drop out.  The film was a massive hit and changed Grable's life, turning her from a bit player in B-Movies into a Grade-A film star almost overnight.

Throughout the 1940's, Grable would be a huge star.  In terms of box office, she was probably the biggest actress of the decade, even if her peers like Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwyck have more memorable roles.  She consistently minted money for Fox doing musical comedies, and was declared the highest-paid woman in the country in 1946 & 1947 by the Treasury Department.  However, it was Grable's position as a pinup star during World War II that people actually remember about her career during this era.  Photographed by Frank Powolny, it shows Grable in a white one-piece bathing suit with her back to the camera to show off her famous legs, a smile over her right shoulder.  This photograph, more than any actual movie, is what people remember Grable for, making her about as good a candidate for a series about "actresses whose appearance superseded their careers" as you could possibly come up with.

Grable's career as a leading woman petered out in the early 1950's when she was replaced as the #1 blonde on the Fox lot by Marilyn Monroe, a woman whom she got along with famously during their only film together How to Marry a Millionaire.  Grable's career turned to Vegas until her death in 1973, but this month we're going to be going back to Grable's heyday, looking at the films that launched her into becoming the highest-paid and one of the most recognizable women in the country during World War II.