Starring Betty Grable, Dan Dailey, David Wayne, and Jane Wyatt
Directed by Henry Koster
Music by Harold Arlen; Lyrics by Ralph Blane
Mother Wore Tights wasn't the last time Betty Grable and Dan Dailey played singing and dancing parents. This modern story of a dancing team who want to adopt a baby was Grable and Dailey's third of four films together. In addition to being a rare musical family drama, it's also one of the earliest film musicals to be set around television. TV was already starting to make headway as the latest up-and-coming medium, and far bigger threat to movies' pop culture dominance than radio. How does one couple handle all these changes? Let's start as radio star Kitty Moran (Grable) learns she's going to have a baby and find out...
The Story: Kitty and her partner and husband Jack (Dailey) are thrilled, and so are all of their friends. Sadly, their dreams of parenthood are shattered when Jack gets drunk at the baby shower and his wife is hurt in a car accident and miscarries. They try to adopt a child on the suggestion of their producer and sponsor Walter Pringle (Wayne) and his wife Janet (Wyatt), but can't due to their status as performers.
Even as their show moves to television, things seem to be turning around, and they find an orphanage willing to let them adopt a boy...until the priggish head of the home Mrs. Bates (Minerva Urecal) sees their friends having a wild party at their apartment to welcome the baby and decides they aren't fit parents after all. Kitty's devastated, until Walter finds a woman who wants to give away her child. Kitty insists on taking care of the baby herself...but first she has to fend off her understudy Gloria (Mitzi Gaynor) when she takes her place on the show, then the child's father turns up and wants it back...
The Song and Dance: I give this one credit for originality. Musicals don't often go into domestic drama, and there's even fewer that involve adoption and how difficult the process is. There's also its discussion of early live television. Movies were mostly trying to ignore this upstart rival at this point; this may have been one of the first film musicals to use it as part of the plot. Daily and Grable make just as believable a couple in modern dress as they did in the early 20th century, and Wayne and Wyatt more than match them as the goofier couple who already have six kids, three adopted.
Favorite Number: We begin with Grable and Dailey clowning on their radio show, singing about tax season and how "It's Deductible," even every member of the family. Wayne and all the men from the show joke about "What a Man!" Dailey is for conceiving a child, as they all get drunk and raucous at the baby shower. They sing about "Halloween" dressed as scarecrows for the Pringle kids after losing the baby. Grable and Dailey are servants dreaming of a night on the town in their masters' clothes and how "I Love a New Yorker" during their TV show.
"Live Hard, Work Hard, Play Hard" starts off with Dailey as a gambler singing about his personal motto and Gaynor as the moll who wants him to pay more attention to her...until we cut to Grable's apartment and see her watching the show. The number finishes with her as she dances her part, claiming she could do better than Gloria ever did. "The Friendly Islands" is an obvious spoof of then then-major Broadway hit "South Pacific," with Dailey attempting to sing bass like Enzio Pinza, Grable in bad dark makeup as the native girl he falls for, and "islanders" and sailors swaying all around them.
Trivia: Film debut of Mitzi Gaynor.
What I Don't Like: I appreciate them tackling difficult subjects like adultery and adoption in a movie musical....but I wish they'd actually figured out if they wanted to be a domestic drama or a slightly dark comedy. There's enough mood whiplash in this film to give you neck cramps. It goes right from the car crash - which we don't see much of - and her recovery into the "Halloween" sequence. Jack looks like he's dallying with Gloria...and then Kitty shows up quickly to lay down the law. On one hand, I am glad they didn't linger over a messy subplot...but it also makes me wish the film hadn't passed over this so quickly. The ending is fairly abrupt and a bit too obvious and happy-ending for the somewhat darker story before it.
Frankly, none of the musical numbers are all that memorable, either. The music is dull, and other than the novel integration of "Live Hard, Work Hard, Play Hard" as Grable wishes she was one performing, mostly don't have anything to do with the film and slow it down.
The Big Picture: While I give 20th Century Fox credit for trying something different with Grable's vehicles, it's still best for fans of her, Dailey, or the big musicals of the 1950's.
Home Media: Easily found on DVD and streaming.
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