A Broadway director rescues a starlet from mobsters who blame her for a shooting.
Similar titles
Reviews
Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!
Good story, Not enough for a whole film
I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.
This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.
This little-remembered Betty Hutton B&W musical farce actually includes an excellent sampling of Betty at her zaniest, and certainly should be sought by all of her fans. Currently, you can enjoy it at YouTube. Her first zany performance accompanies the song "I Wake up in the Morning Feeling Fine", composed by Frank Loesser, who composed all 4 of the featured songs. The idea is that Betty awakens early, full of energy, in contrast to her 2 roommates Sandra(June Havoc) and NoNo(Jane Nigh). Betty does all she can to encourage them to wake up, including dumping them out of bed. Later, Betty sings and dances raucously to "That's Loyalty" when auditioning for a part in a play. When she attends a rehearsal of "Hamlet", she does an raucous alternative interpretation of Ophelia. Later, in an apartment, she sings the romantic ballad "Now that I Need You".William Demarest, as Charlie, sets Betty up with a middle-aged millionaire: Alex, who tries to paw her in the back seat of a car. Later, his wife arrives at the restaurant where they are. Being used to seeing him with a young blond on his arm, she pours ice water on Betty, to 'cool her off'. Betty retaliates by smashing a cream pie in her face....Later, Betty goes to the apartment of a gangster posing as a show producer. After trying to seduce her, he is shot dead by an unknown assassin. As a result, she's in trouble with the police and his fellow gangsters.I don't believe Victor Mature(Danny) was miscast as Betty's boyfriend, as several reviewers suggest. He was handsome and muscular. and had costarred with Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth in musicals. You couldn't have Howard Keel as her costar in every picture! Besides, his muscles came in handy when rescuing Betty from the gangsters. This latter segment is quite amusing if you like slapstick. It begins with Betty yelling as loud as she could the song "Now that I Need You", which Mature serendipitously hears while cruising outside the apartment. He gains entry by posing as a piano tuner,(of all things). It didn't take long to decide that he was a phony, wherein he starts a brawl with the gangsters. Eventually, he manages to untie Betty, who then joins the slugfest, throwing heavy loose items, dumping a barrel of molasses on them, turning a fire hose on them, and using her martial arts training. She even accidentally knocks out Mature after the others are subdued.
Despite having a good cast and a good script, this film is not that good at all. Betty Hutton is an aspiring actress who is absolutely bonkers in more or less every film she's in. It would be good to see her in a serious role rather than comedy roles where she is over the top. Victor Mature wants to be a Broadway director and is a bit more believable. This is probably down to the writing rather than his performance. He has some good lines, but it's just that other characters around him are not so well drawn or believable. Hutton is quite spirited, and you well believe that she can hold her own in a fight with a man or woman, maybe even two men. It would take a big woman to get the better of Hutton. Overall, it is disposable fun.
Betty Hutton is a chorus girl hoping for a big break who is all of a sudden the target of the mob. She recounts her story for the gangsters (and the audience) of how she got involved. It includes lecherous producers, backers and a loyal boyfriend (Victor Mature), and features several wacky numbers, including a burlesque of "Hamlet" that refers to the story of Shakespeare's classic play with the lyrics, "And the name of this omelet is Hamlet!" (And you thought "Gilligan's Island"'s Hamlet parody was camp!) Typically, this "omelet" really could have laid an egg itself, but thanks to Hutton's vivacity (which everybody came to expect in her films), it doesn't. June Havoc ("Gypsy's" real-life Dainty June) plays a secondary role, an irony over the fact that Hutton later played her mother in a summer stock production of that classic Jule Style/Stephen Sondheim musical. Broadway's Frank Loesser, who later wrote songs for the gangsters of "Guys and Dolls", wrote the music for this, and plays a featured role.
There's not much to this film other than star Betty Hutton herself. The production values are minimal, the storyline (about a small theatre company trying to hit the big time) is simultaneously convoluted and unengaging. And your guess is as good as mine as to what the title has to do with anything (taken from a relatively successful Cole Porter stage production, there is *nothing* here by Cole Porter).But, if you like Betty Hutton, you'll probably enjoy the film. It isn't as key a film in her career as "Annie Get Your Gun," "The Perils of Pauline," or "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek," but it certainly gives her plenty of room to showcase her manic comic ability and her own (shall we say) unique way of putting over a number. You just haven't experienced Betty Hutton until you've seen her perform a four-minute musical encapsulation of "Hamlet." Fasten your seat belts and hold onto the arm rests, because she is dialed up to eleven throughout the piece. Everytime you think she can't get anymore over the top, she manages to push even farther! This number alone makes the entire film worthy of some interest.