What About Betty Grable?

[Uncle Stevie]

I have been thinking a lot about Betty Grable lately and watching many of her movies. Here is my opinion, not a conclusion but an opinion. Her movies are very enjoyable and I feel comfortable watching them. Here is the rub, though. She is a mediocre performer. She tries harder than most and gets away with a lot of imperfection. Her dancing is rather clumsy and poorly trained. Her singing is also not at a professional level. Her acting is warm but trite. She is very pretty but one could get sick of that "Betty Grable Wig". Her best features are her legs and her figure although she could use a little beefing up on top and she has always had that pink color skin that is dynamite. Her total abilities seem to me to be that of a "best of the best" High School stage performer. Yet I love to watch her in movies. I am taken with this lady and always want to see more. I don't know what it is that appeals to me but something does. I guess maybe she appeals to me on a testosterone level. I could have loved this women if given the chance.

[ken123]

IMHO Betty Grable needed a stong supporting cast in order to have an enjoyable film, her looks ( Im sure that I am in a minority here ) were ok and while I am a great admirerer of female legs hers were just a bit above average not as good as Marlenas, Cyds, or Ann Dvoraks, as shown a while back in the Anatole Litvack directed film starring Hank Fonda that was on TCM 2 - 3weeks back. +


+ My list of film gals with great gams could go on and on !

[mongoII]

A happy birthday to Betty Grable today.

[Rita Hayworth]

The main problem with Betty Grable is that she and Rita Hayworth were the MAIN pin-up queens in World War Two; she is a very lovely lady - with shapely figure and an All-American look.

I felt as an actress - she was a Strong B actress trying to get into A starring roles - the problem is that there were too many blonde bombshells - I can list 15 right off the bat (but, I won't) and that alone limited her chance to excel in Hollywood. I adore her looks and she a very kind and gentle soul. But, she didn't have the wide range of skills to exceed in Hollywood.

She took a very long time get into stardom and eventually superstar-dom - with her breakout role as Kathryn "Kat" Latimer in Moon over Miami (in 1941) and continue to be Paramount's top female star until she did How to Marry a Millionaire with Marilyn Monroe and Lauren Bacall in year 1953. Subtract 1953 to 1941 - give her 12 years as A Minus Actress - but she needs a strong supporting cast to make it work so that Paramount can make money.

I only saw about 6-8 of her movies and I felt that (I'm sorry everyone) I had a very hard time remembering what her movies all about - other her good looks, pleasant smile, and killer legs. To bad, she wasn't employed at Columbia - she would work real well with Rita, I can see her doing My Gal Sal, Cover Girl, Tonight and Every Night, and even Down to Earth in a significant supporting role to showcase her beauty and charisma.

I might even add Miss Sadie Thompson - but this Rita's movie would be out of whack. So, it would be a nifty here. Thompson was made in 1953 - I think.

She was marvelous in some of the many musicals that she did (I was told that she did 20 plus in her lifetime) in her acting career; but again I'm having a hard time recalling them - and that my friends she didn't have an extended career like everyone that worked in Hollywood.

So in short, she has 12 good short years - after she made How to Marry a Millionaire with Monroe and Bacall - Paramount replaces her with Marilyn Monroe; just like Columbia replaces Rita Hayworth with Kim Novak in Pal Joey in 1957.

It's called PASSING THE TORCH ...

[mongoII]

I always enjoyed watching Betty Grable perform on the screen. That sunshine smile and her white marble skin mesmerized me. Recently TCM showed my favorite Grable film "Mother Wore Tights" which was a delightful musical.
Betty was a good kid.

[Rita Hayworth]

I always enjoyed watching Betty Grable perform on the screen. That sunshine smile and her white marble skin mesmerized me. Recently TCM showed my favorite Grable film "Mother Wore Tights" which was a delightful musical.
Betty was a good kid.

I never seen that movie - I wished I watched it mongoII - I wished.
Maybe, I could find it at Blockbuster this weekend.

I did loved her in Moon in Miami - that I recall seeing 15 years ago. I need to visit TCM and other movies websites to look for these movies. But, I do recall How to Marry a Millionaire - I saw that three months ago ... it was excellent.

[moira finnie]

I like Betty Grable's relentless cheeriness and, from what I've read, she was a survivor and a pretty decent person to those she worked with in her heyday and beyond. I really like her early appearances in musicals such as The Gay Divorcee (1934) (I love her song with Edward Everett Horton, "Let's K-nock K-neez"), the college musical, Old Man Rhythm (1935), and there are some good moments in her later, formulaic work. This may have been repetitive and largely undistinguished musically, but the very unreality of these woozy movies probably eased the wartime burdens of many careworn audience members, who really needed that sunny smile of hers.

I always had the impression that Betty Grable knew her limitations and felt that as long as Fox was going to pay her to be a living kewpie doll on screen, she'd do her best to put a film over. The main problem I have with her career was the sameness of her Technicolor films (and the candy box colors utilized onscreen, which seem so harsh now).

Most of her movie plots seemed to consist of:
Her game but struggling character tries to make a go of it on the fringes of show biz until she meets and is attracted to John Payne/George Montgomery/Dick Haymes/Dan Dailey but some misunderstanding/world war/familial obligation/contractual obligation prevented the pair from connubial bliss until the last five minutes of the movie.

All this was punctuated by "showstopping" routines that were sometimes bizarre/trite/old-fashioned in the gay nineties or torn from a rejected page in the Great American Songbook. Occasionally, a better than average song or plot or staging found its way into her movies, resulting in highly entertaining moments in the The Dolly Sisters, Mother Wore Tights and Coney Island. Grable's occasional "straight" movies (not essentially musicals), such as A Yank in the RAF, I Wake Up Screaming and How To Marry a Millionaire were really good entertainment as wartime propaganda, film noir, and as a comic fantasy, fifties-style.

According to Darryl Zanuck memos in Rudy Behlmer's book about the mogul, without Betty Grable's consistent profits for the studio in the '40s, (she was the top box office star in the world from '42-'51, a feat that has never been matched by any other actress), he would never have been able to take a chance on less commercial material--films such as How Green was my Valley (1941), Man Hunt (1941), The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), Laura (1944), A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), Gentleman’s Agreement (1946), Thieves' Highway (1949), Pinky (1949), Twelve O’clock High (1949), and All About Eve (1950).

Betty Grable was the workhorse who paid their way.

[pvitari]

I love Betty Grable, and I love the candy colors of her Fox Technicolor movies. She's pretty in black and white; but in color she is a total knockout. She was born for Technicolor.

I wish the musicals had more substance to them and better songs but they're very pleasant affairs, especially when her leading man is *fangirl sigh* John Payne. (Don Ameche is nothing to sneeze at either.)

I think she's a much better actress than she ever gave herself credit for. She has a charming singing voice, and I love to watch her dance. In fact, "Kindergarten Conga" in Moon Over Miami is one of those musical numbers I have obsessed over -- watched it over and over again until I got it out of my system. That is, it's still in my system though I don't feel compelled to watch it every single day right now. :) Her partner in "Kindergarten Conga" is the great Hermes Pan, Fred Astaire's collaborator in choreography. Pan moved over to 20th Century Fox after the Astaire-Rogers partnership broke up.

And I'm sure that our friend Kingme is well aware that Pan also danced with Rita Hayworth. :)

Back to Betty.. I could watch her all day long. She conveys sweetness, sincerity, girl-next-door-ness... as well as spunk and grit and everything else you'd want in a war-time musical heroine who'll keep dancing away no matter what... till it all comes right in the end, because it just has to.

She holds her own with Tyrone Power in A Yank in the RAF, too!

http://gregoryagogo.multiply.com/video/ ... Over_Miami

[Rita Hayworth]

Dear All,

I read a lot of your comments and I learned a lot from you guys - my problem with her is that I always missed out seeing her movies (I worked 21 years at Boeing; and often put in 60-70 work weeks) and every time I come home and looked at the TV Guide and noticed that a Betty Grable movie was on. I could had recorded it on my VCR, and later DVR - and missed out every chance to see this blonde with killer legs.

I really do not know much about Betty Grable, because I was too busy with Hayworth, Russell, Monroe, Sheridan, Taylor, and I admit that I missed out seeing her ... and drats I often wished I could seen more than 6-8 of her movies.

She was a workhorse - something like 25 movies in 10-12 years - but, I do admire her with great admiration and her work in Miami and Millionaire was really something. Sad, to say - I never had a chance to see more of her movies and I wished see more of her magic. The real beauty about this web-site is not that we love old movies - is that we learned more about them and I wished we weren't so busy in our mundane lives - just like I worked 60-70 hours a week at Boeing.

Now, I'm retired and I been watching more movies now - I watch about 1-2 movies a day; to play catch up and perhaps catch the magic of Betty Grable again, the blonde with Killer Legs.