Starring Betty Hutton, Barry Fitzgerald, Robert Benchley, and Don DeFore
Directed by Hal Walker
Music and Lyrics by various
This week, we explore the career of brash comedienne Betty Hutton with two of her lesser-known vehicles. The Stork Club in New York was more than just a nightclub. From 1929 until its closing in 1965, it was where the elite mixed and mingled, where the beautiful people danced the night away to lively big band music under the watchful eye of owner Sherman Billingsley. It was so well-regarded in this era as a symbol of wealth and status, maybe it was inevitable that a movie would be made around it. How does the story of a humble hat check girl working at the Club who comes into sudden wealth look nowadays, with the real-life Club long-gone? Let's begin with a kindly old gentleman (Fitzgerald) in rumpled clothing ruminating about how his life has taken a bad turn and find out...
The Story: Brash Judy Peabody (Hutton) jumps into the water to rescue the gentleman after he accidentally falls off. Turns out the gentleman is millionaire J.B Bates, who was lost in gloomy thoughts about his wife Edith (Mary Young) leaving him. She thinks he's a tramp and offers him a job at the Stork Club. He doesn't do well as a busboy, but he's still so impressed with her compassion, he has his lawyer Curtis (Benchley) anonymously set her up with an unlimited line of credit and a big, beautiful new apartment. She and her best friend Gwen (Iris Adrian) go on a buying spree, grabbing furs when it's too hot to wear them and buying everything in the dress store.
Judy's boyfriend Danny (DeFore), who has just returned from the war, doesn't like this one bit. He likes it even less when she offers the apartment next to hers to him and his band. He thinks she has a sugar daddy on the side. She just wants to sing with his band. He's even more suspicious when she thinks J.D is homeless and lets him live with her. After she finally figures out who gave her the money and why Danny is angry, she takes it on herself to bring J.D back with Edith...and teach everyone involved, including Danny, a lesson in love, trust, and communication.
The Song and Dance: With a story that slight, the songs - and Hutton's wild delivery of them - are the highlights here. The songs really are charming ("Doctor, Lawyer, Indiana Chief" became a pop hit), and Fitzgerald is so adorably rumpled as the lost old millionaire looking for someone to support, you can understand why Judy's heart went out to him. Mary Young is equally adorable as his sweet wife who is far tougher than she looks, and Adrian revels in her sarcastic wisecracks as Judy's supportive friend who both questions the bounty and eagerly shares in it. Hutton's obviously having a ball as the kind-hearted singer and hat check girl whose well-meaning aid to a nice old man gets her into more trouble than she ever would have believed.
The Numbers: Judy's first number with the band at the Stork Club highlights her raucous spirit. "Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief" describes how she doesn't care what the guy she loves does, as long as they love each other. It's a lively number with members of the band acting as chorus boys. We don't get another song until she's rehearsing with Danny's band at their new apartment, but it's the similar "I'm a Square In the Social Circle," reflecting her attitudes towards the upper crust who mostly patronize the Stork Club.
J.B requests "In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree," a favorite waltz of his and Edith's. It's performed again in the end when Judy gets him and Edith back together. Her performance of the ballad "I'll Have a Dozen Hearts" isn't appreciated by an angry Danny. She sings it with male band singer Andy Russell later. Russell also gets a solo on another ballad, "Love Me."
What I Don't Like: The story is, as Irishman Fitzgerald would likely say, a load of malarkey. It's silly piffle that mainly serves as an excuse for Hutton to play off Fitzgerald and raise the roof with the band. Danny comes off as a grouchy, ungrateful jerk who won't even try to listen to his girlfriend when he's nice to her and gives him a place for his band to work. Doesn't help that Hutton has little chemistry with DeFore - she's more believably compassionate with Fitzgerald and Adrian than with him.
The Big Finale: Harmless watch on a spring afternoon if you're a fan of Hutton or 40's musicals.
Home Media: It's in the public domain, so you can find it anywhere. It's currently free on Tubi, but in a substandard print.
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