WHEN MY BABY SMILES AT ME

Betty Grable

WHEN MY BABY SMILES AT ME (1948). Director: Walter Lang. 

Burlesque performers Bonny Kane (Betty Grable) and her husband Skid Johnson (Dan Dailey) have dreams of the big time when they learn that Skid has been offered a big part in a Broadway show. Bonny is happy with her husband's advancement but she isn't thrilled when she learns he'll be performing with her rival, a predatory blonde named Sylvia (Jean Wallace of The Big Combo). Skid has a more serious problem than Sylvia and that's his love of liquor. Will Bonny succumb to the charms of admirer and rich rancher Harvey Howell (Richard Arlen) or will she be able to overlook her husband's peccadilloes? And will Skid wind up in Bellevue's dipsomaniac ward or back on Broadway? 

Dan Dailey and Betty Grable

Although many might consider this another Betty Grable Musical and she is very good in the picture the fact remains that this is Dan Dailey's show from start to finish. Dailey earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his strong and demanding turn as the frustrated, sad, and alcoholic Skid, and he delivers in every scene, the charming ones as well as the more difficult moments. He gets good support from such cast members as June Havoc (of My Sister Eileen) and Jack Oakie (of Million Dollar Legs) as another burlesque team, James Gleason as theater owner Lefty Moore, and Arlen and Wallace. Betty isn't showcased all that well in a weird torch number in which her movements are more strange than sexy, but she does a nice job with a pretty new number entitled "By the Way." This is the third version of a play entitled "Burlesque," so there are plenty of cliches on hand, but the picture is smoothly directed, photographed in beautiful technicolor, and despite its dramatic moments, is colorful fun. I'll leave it to individual viewers to decide if the ending is a happy one or not. Dailey does an imitation of Ted Lewis at one point and Jack Oakie does Al Jolson.  

Verdict: Dailey's fine performance gives this show biz drama some heft. ***.  

MURDER AT THE VANITIES

MURDER AT THE VANITIES (1934). Director: Mitchell Leisen.

On opening night at Earl Carroll's Broadway revue, the Vanities, a dead body is found far up above the stage dripping blood on chorus girls. Lt. Murdock (Victor McLaglen) investigates while producer Jack Oakie throws a panic. Kitty Carlisle is the star of the show, Ann Ware, who's engaged to the European import -- and her co-star -- Eric Lander (Carl Brisson). Jessie Ralph is the wardrobe mistress-with-a-secret, and Gertrude Michael is the supremely bitchy performer, Rita Ross (she does a lively number on "Marijuana!") Even Charles Middleton -- Ming the Merciless of the Flash Gordon serials -- shows up as another member of the cast. At one point his orchestra playing Liszt is hijacked by a swing/jazz band and he gets even by firing a (prop) machine gun at everyone on stage. Dorothy Stickney, who years later would play the Queen in the Julie Andrews version of Cinderella, steals the show as Norma, Rita's long-suffering maid and punching bag. Danish Brisson was a former boxer who should have stayed with that profession -- his singing voice is grating on the ears (especially in duet with Carlisle's beautiful tones) and he only made a half dozen or so movies. He had a pleasant enough personality and some little acting ability, but major star material he was not.

Verdict: Not exactly murder to sit through but no world-beater, either. **.

SHE WROTE THE BOOK

Mischa Auer and Joan Davis

SHE WROTE THE BOOK (1946). Director: Charles Lamont.

Jane Featherstone (Joan Davis of Around the World) is a prim and proper, intellectual science professor at the conservative Croydon College. She and everyone else on the faculty are appalled by the publication of a banned tell-all memoir entitled "Always Lulu," in which a woman's many amours are recounted in detail. No one knows that the author is actually the Dean's wife Phyllis (Gloria Stuart of Titanic). Phyllis can't collect the considerable royalties for the book unless she appears in person in New York, so she importunes her friend Jane to impersonate her. But when Jane is knocked out and becomes an amnesiac, she believes what everyone tells her, that she is Lulu, and takes on a whole new glamorous persona.

Joan Davis as "Lulu"

Given the excellent premise of this movie, as well as the cast members, one would think that She Wrote the Book was a laugh riot, but instead it's a disappointment. Joan Davis certainly gives it her all, and she gets some good support from Jack Oakie as the publisher's advertising manager; Mischa Auer as a man hired to woo her for money; Kirby Grant [In Society] as Eddie, a nice young guy who is attracted to Jane but definitely not to Lulu; and Thurston Hall as a wealthy ship builder who is mightily attracted to the supposedly oh-so-sexy and highly experienced "Lulu." John Litel is the dean and Jacquline deWit [The Damned Don't Cry] is the ship builder's jealous wife who threatens more than one person with a gun. The trouble with the film is not necessarily with the players but with a screenplay that lacks wit and never really pulls off the solid laughs it deserves, although there are a few amusing moments here and there. She Wrote the Book still manages to hold the attention and you do wonder how it will all turn out.

Verdict: Cute idea but the execution is only so-so. **1/2. 

MILLION DOLLAR LEGS

Jack Oakie and W. C. Fields

MILLION DOLLAR LEGS (1932). Director: Edward F. Cline.

Traveling salesman Migg Tweeney (Jack Oakie of Thieves Highway) comes to the small, impoverished nation of Klopstokia -- where the men are all named George and the women are all named Angela -- and promptly falls in love with the President's (W. C. Fields) daughter, Angela (Susan Fleming) and vice versa. But the President will not allow Angela to marry Migg unless he can come up with a way of raising needed capital to keep the man in office as his advisers plot to oust him any way they can. Noticing how athletic the people are, Migg comes up with the idea of Klopstokia entering the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles. But will Angela's countrymen be able to keep up their morale once Mata Machree (Lyda Roberti) pulls a vamp on all of them and sets one against another? Million Dollar Legs is a very silly movie, and some of the gags in the script co-written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz are creaky groaners (although still funny) but the movie is amiable and amusing enough to work, with many clever sight gags. The wonderful Fields [The Bank Dick] is simply not given enough to do, and one can only imagine how much better the movie would have been if Bob Hope had been cast in the Oakie part. (Oakie gets equal billing with Fields, a situation that would not last much longer.) Susan Fleming is an appealing heroine, but the real scene-stealer in this is Lyda Roberti. Although Mata Machree is billed as "the woman no man can resist" there's a comic absurdity in the fact that Roberti, while cute, is not exactly a raving beauty, but she certainly can dance in a mighty sexy manner, slithering sensually in a way that borders on camp. Ben Turpin and little Dickie Moore [Blonde Venus] are also in the cast and add their own brand of humor.

Verdict: More of Fields would have helped, but this is a cute picture with lots of laughs. ***.

KING OF BURLESQUE

Alice Faye and a bevy of chorus cuties

KING OF BURLESQUE (1936). Director: Sidney Lanfield.

Kerry Bolton (Warner Baxter of Just Before Dawn) has been very successful as a producer of burlesque entertainment, but he longs for Broadway respectability and embarks on a new career. He also decides to romance a society lady named Rosalind Cleve (Mona Barrie), who is down on her luck and already engaged to handsome singer, Stanley Drake (Charles Quigley of The Crimson Ghost). In a bizarre development Rosalind agrees to marry Kerry if the latter will back Drake financially for a career in opera as well as give him the lead in a high-brow Broadway show. Obviously this is not a recipe for marriage -- or musical -- success. In the meantime, Pat Doran (Alice Faye), who's been carrying the torch for Kerry, is heartbroken and leaves his employ. Will true love win out in the end? Since not enough is made of the strange marital triangle, we're left with some winning production numbers, especially when Bolton finally stages his big show for a comeback. You have to see the gals swinging like trapeze artists over a supper club set to believe it. Fats Waller sings "Got My Fingers Crossed;" little Gareth Joplin tap dances his little heart out; Kenny Baker does a sterling rendition of another of the catchy numbers; and a piece with the chorus boys adroitly tap dancing with Faye is also delightful. The leads are all fine, with nice work from Jack Oakie as Kerry's pal, Joe; Dixie Dunbar as secretary turned singer, Marie; and especially Gregory Ratoff [All About Eve] as a man who impersonates a wealthy Russian backer of the revue. This is a near-MGM style musical from Twentieth Century Fox. Remade as Hello, Frisco, Hello, also with Faye and Oakie, and John Payne replacing Warner Baxter.

Verdict: The story takes a back seat to the snappy numbers. ***.

THE GREAT AMERICAN BROADCAST

THE GREAT AMERICAN BROADCAST (1941). Director: Archie Mayo.

A group of earnest performers and others try to bring entertainment to the new radio medium with varying degrees of success. This basic premise is tied to a forgettable triangle plot involving singer Vicki (Alice Faye), her alleged boyfriend, Chuck (Jack Oakie) and handsome Rix Martin (handsome John Payne) -- guess who gets the gal? Cesar Romero also appears as a wealthy man who backs the group in their efforts but is at odds with Rix for a number of reasons. Some of the songs are pleasant [I Take to You; Where You Are; Long Ago Last Night] but Oakie's trashing of the sextet from Lucia di Lammermoor isn't funny [as were the Three Stooges in their short, "Micro-Phonies] -- you just wish he'd shut up so you can enjoy the music. There's some great tap dancing by the Nicolas Brothers, but otherwise this is a bit dull. There could probably be a great musical about the early days of radio and bringing entertainment to the masses over the airwaves, but the totally standard Great American Broadcast isn't it. The actors, even Oakie, are fine.

Verdict: Predictable and one-dimensional musical with some memorable songs and a lousy script. **.

THIEVES' HIGHWAY

THIEVES' HIGHWAY (1949). Director: Jules Dassin.

Nick Garcos (Richard Conte) comes home from the war and discovers that his father, a trucker, was crippled in a horrible accident caused by a corrupt man named Figlia (Lee J. Cobb). Nick enters the trucking business himself by hauling apples with a partner named Ed (Millard Mitchell) and gets involved with two women, a "good" girl named Polly (Barbara Lawrence), and a hooker named Rica (Valentina Cortese). Conte gives a terrific lead performance but the drama is kind of weak; relationships are not well-delineated. It's no surprise that the most memorable scenes have to do with action: the suspenseful business when Nick is nearly crushed under his truck when he tries to change a blown out tire; and the harrowing moments with Ed's runaway truck when his brakes fail. There's way too much talk about apples early in the picture. Cobb is as good as ever in a typical role for him, but Millard Mitchell nearly walks off with the movie as Ed. The two ladies would have made more of an impression had their roles not been so under-written. Jack Oakie, of all people, makes a strong impression in a serious role as a trucker named "Slob."

Verdict: On the Waterfront it ain't. **.

IT HAPPENED TOMORROW

IT HAPPENED TOMORROW (1944). Director: Rene Clair.

A strange old man gives reporter Larry Stevens (Dick Powell) newspapers with tomorrows news before it happens. Stevens uses this to advance his career by being in the right place at the right time -- but it makes the police and others suspicious. Finally he sees a headline that has a very personal impact on his life. This is a light-hearted, superficial treatment of an interesting idea, although it has its amusing moments and there's some genuine suspense at the close. Dick Powell is okay playing a character who is not entirely admirable; Linda Darnell is pretty and pretty swell as his sweetheart, and Jack Oakie; with facial hair that somewhat softens his repulsive, potato-faced countenance, does a fine job as Darnell's father.

Verdict: Minor-league fantasy has its moments. **1/2.