source: My Blue Heaven

Moviecut—My Blue Heaven

My Blue Heaven

Love the costumes wore by Betty Gable. Wondering if all the furs were real? The white fur was so elegant. Was that all rabbit? Even the dark blue and black dress was awesome. Where can we get info on that dress?

Usually I love the Fox musicals...but this one is just boring. The dancing and the songs can't save this one. And how nice to know that they actually had color TV video cameras and color TV receiver sets in 1950!!! The special effects people couldn't make the spliced-in TV images in B&W I guess???? Bad editing. And don't you just envy Betty Grable's push-down monitor. Wow, wish I had one (not). And that "baby" that the Morans illegally "adopt" (then they get her back later, still under suspicious circumstances)...and the Morans never had given "baby" a name? Unless I missed it along the boring way. Then old Miss Adoption Agency has a quick change of heart and offers them a boy. Then Betty is pregnant again after all!!!! All this makes for a very unbelievable story.

This film really isn't much. The performers are all agreeable, but the real star is the score by Harold Arlen and Ralph Blane. The lost gem is "Halloween", an Arlen waltz performed by Betty Grable, Dan Dailey, and David Wayne. Arlen did not write many waltzes. Only "When the Boys Come Home", "Sunday in Cisero Falls", and "Fancy Free" come to mind. This is a fine waltz with a witty lyric by Blane telling us that Irving Berlin forgot to write a song about "Halloween". "Don't Rock the Boat", Arlen's take on Calypso music, is also a winner. "Friendly Island" is a hilarious send up of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "South Pacific". Blane has never been so archly funny. Dailey even makes fun of Ezio Pinza's singing in this number. Aside from these numbers, "Mother Wore Tights" and "Call Me Mister" are superior Grable-Dailey films. Wayne gives us some comedy, but it is not enough to make the film sparkle.

Mediocre musical. Kitty and Jack Moran (Betty Grable and Dan Dailey) try to adopt a baby. One complication after another pops up preventing them from doing that. These complications aren't funny--just pretty depressing (for a musical). These are all interspersed with bad music and dance numbers. This is a pretty bad 1950 musical. The dialogue is terrible and all the songs are completely unmemorable. Also Dailey has a tendency to REALLY overact. But the movie is in bright Technicolor,there is a Halloween number that I enjoyed, the plot is pretty interesting and the dancing is incredible. Also David Wayne, Jane Wyatt and a very young Mitzi Gaynor are good in supporting roles. But Grable saves the picture. She's gorgeous, can sing and dance, has good chemistry with Dailey and holds her own in the dramatic scenes. She's basically the only good thing worth watching here. Aside from her this is a bad musical. I give it a 4.

Can't remember much about the movie, except my parents were a little disgusted at some of the dialogue. One that stands out: Grable and Dailey, a married couple, announced she was pregnant. At a party (or something)where they announced the news, somebody said something like, "Well, we had better go because they probably want to be alone." To which David Wayne, in whatever role he was playing, said, "Listen, if what these two kids said is true, they've been alone." That was one pretty risque line for 1950. Would that dialogue today were as tame as that.

The songs and dances are wonderful! Kitty and Jack are actors so when they sing/perform there are scenery and wardrobes that go along with the songs, making it less like an ordinary "musical." The story itself is modern and realistic even for the time (like someone else mentioned some of the things they say may have been considered "risque.") If you like old movies or musicals, I recommend you find a way to see this! You'll never get these songs out of your head, and you probably wont want to either. A classic! I grew up watching this movie over and over again. I wish that I could find another copy but it seems impossible. :( If any decides to release it again, let me know!

Even sixty-five years ago this would probably have seemed like a tail- end example of the great late thirties and forties Fox musicals turned out by Fox and a 'resident' team including Alice Fay, Don Ameche, John Payne, Carmen Miranda, Tyrone Power and Betty Grable, who succeeded Alice Faye as Queen of the Lot and was herself succeeded by Marilyn Monroe. Watching it today the overall impression is of s popular genre running out of steam. Harold Arlen's score is lacklustre by his standards though he would turn out A Star Is Born four years later. One of the most interesting segments is the Friendly Islands number, a parody of South Pacific (then in its second year on Broadway) in which Mitzi Gaynor - in her first feature film - actually sings the words South Pacific, and would, of course, go on to play the lead in the film version one decade later. David Wayne is probably the best thing in it and certainly gets the lion's share of the laughs.