Happy Memorial Day! - Here Comes the Waves

Paramount, 1944
Starring Betty Hutton, Bing Crosby, Sonny Tufts, and Ann Doran
Directed by Mark Sandrich
Music by Harold Arlen; Lyrics by Johnny Mercer

During World War II, for the first time, the Armed Services recruited women as well as men. Women took the places of men on the homefront, teaching them to fly, doing office work, engineering parachutes, and driving delivery vehicles. The WAVES were a real group, the United States Naval Reserve, and many women did leave their jobs and homes to volunteer. What happens to a pair of twins who decide to join those ranks in order to meet a handsome singer who is determined to follow his father's footsteps? Let's head to Los Angeles, where the WAVES are signing people up, to find out...

The Story: Rosemary Allison (Hutton) enlists her and twin sister Susie (Hutton) into the WAVES, despite them being very different. Rosemary is a smart and serious brunette; Susie is a noisy, scatterbrained blonde. Susie is obsessed with singer Johnny Cabot (Crosby), to the point where she brings her collection of his records with her to the barracks and listen to them while she bathes. She's beyond thrilled when she and her sister meet her idol at a club while on leave. Johnny, however, is far more interested in Rosemary than her sister.

He's trying to get his friend Windy (Tufts) to get him into the Navy, so he can serve on the same boat as his father. Susie's horrified at the idea of him getting killed and sends in a suggestion that he star in and direct a show to aid WAVES recruitment. Johnny thinks it was Windy's idea, and Rosemary thinks it was Johnny's and that he's more interested in himself than the show. Windy finds out it was Susie's idea, and first tries to get Johnny to think Rosemary's not into him, then have to figure out how to keep him with the show when he's determined to be on that ship.

The Song and Dance: The fun thing about this one is how it acknowledges and plays with Bing's fame in the 30's and early 40's. Most people think of girls drooling over recording stars as being a relatively recent thing, but as this movie points out, it's been around for decades. Yes, Bing was a teen idol, and yes, he was so popular that women would faint dead away if they spoke to him. Susie's not the only one obsessed with him, either. We see women collapse just from him singing "That Old Black Magic" at a concert, and his popularity with the ladies is also used as a plot point when Susie calls out to the ladies on the street to mob him and keep him from fleeing the show.

Favorite Number: "The Navy Song" in the opening serves to introduce the viewer to the WAVES program as we see women recruiting for the group, and then to the Allisons and their very different personalities when they pick up the song for their nightclub act. Bing gets two decent ballads, "Let's Take the Long Way Home" as he accompanies Rosemary back to the barracks, and the romantic idol "I Promise You" in the show, this time with Rosemary in a white dress and flower in her hair as they swear to always be faithful. Hutton and the WAVES chorus spoofs female and male sailor stereotypes as she claims "There's a Fellow Waiting in Poughkeepsie"...and in every port around the world and Johnny and Windy prepare for their dates.

What I Don't Like: The film itself is pretty much one long recruitment advertisement for the WAVES. Hutton's role isn't well-written - Susie comes off as annoying and clingy, Rosemary as frigid and obnoxious when she refuses to listen to Johnny's honest explanation about the letter. The movie's best-known (and Oscar-nominated) song, "Acc-en-tu-ate the Positive," is unfortunately introduced in a clumsy blackface number featuring Bing and Tufts as a pair of lazy black stereotypes. The movie's big finale, it's title number, is also strangely dull, with the women just marching onstage in time to the music. They could have least have done some more effects or marched into the audience or something.

The Big Finale: Necessary only for major fans of Crosby, Hutton, or 40's musicals. Everyone else would probably be better-off looking for Crosby's commercial recording of "Acc-en-tu-ate the Positive."

Home Media: Currently available as part of the made-to-order Universal Vault collection or on several Bing Crosby DVD sets.

DVD - Universal Vault
DVD - Bing Crosby: Screen Legends Collection
DVD - Bing Crosby: The Silver Screen Collection