Pin Up Girl

Astaire & Rogers it's not. While it was somewhat entertaining fluff, it had few other redeeming qualities. The costumes were ridiculous, distracting and very unflattering. And unfortunately, there really wasn't anything significantly original in the storyline itself. The final number, while impressive in its precision, lacked variety and musical interest, and consequently became boring very quickly, as the same moves were repeated over and over again. One very notable exception was the performance by Frank & Harry Condos (as The Condos Brothers). Their dancing was exceptional and dazzling to watch. If you're looking for simple fluff and diversion - enjoy. Just don't set your expectations too high.

This is a patriotic flag-waver of a film that could never be made anymore. The emphasis is on pulling together and supporting the armed forces, all in gleaming colour. It is a wartime film that says although the world is in a spin if we work together to beat the foe, things will work out fine in the end. It is sweet as a sugar coated pill, made to cheer the people up in World War 2. And who better to do that than blonde Betty Grable, lively and bright and charming. There are flashes in the film of the classic pin-up picture of her looking saucily over her shoulder.

A formula film then but it does have some bright spots. Joe E Brown and Martha Raye being loud and cantankerous. The dancing Condos Brothers who tap dance like furies. The gorgeous technicolour. Charlie Spivack's band. The musical numbers are OK though the roller skating number and the marching sequence hilarious in the wrong sort of way.

There is a real gem in the film, a number called 'Once Too Often', which is a sour song of love and betrayal, at odds with the rest of the saccharine mood of the film. Grable sings it well then dances it with the great Hermes Pan. In her split skirt showing those million dollar legs, she and Pan do a sexy routine together. It's the best thing in the whole movie.

Joe E Brown and Martha Raye were 2 veteran vaudeville performers, as well as film personalities, both known, among other things, for their unusually wide mouths. Both were primarily comedians, but neither is allowed to be funny in this '44 Fox Technicolor. Martha was also a singer and does get to do a couple of solos. She and Betty were last seen together in a film when they were both contracted with Paramount, playing sisters in the '38 B&W "Give Me a Sailor", costarring Bob Hope. In that delightful little domestic comedy, Martha was the star and Betty the supporting actress. Here, the tables are turned, with Betty the star performer and providing most of the comedy, along with occasional inputs from rotund Eugene 'bullfrog' Palette, who plays her office boss.

Unusual for a Grable film, she lacks one of her usual leading or supporting men. Instead, her romantic interest is a rather faceless serviceman in the form of John Harvey. Actually, this was a rather common ploy in musical comedies during the later part of WWII. Other notable Fox examples include "Something For the Boys" and "The Gang's All Here". Perhaps the most extreme example is Warner's "Hollywood Canteen". The idea was to present a 'nobody' serviceman that servicemen could better identify with, as the leading lady's romantic interest.

It sometimes happened in '40s musicals that specialty acts provided the most interesting musical, comedy or gymnastic act, and this is perhaps one of those films.The gaudy roller skating dance act by 'The Skating Vanities', accompanied by Martha's "Red Robins, Bobwhites, and Bluebirds" is certainly the eye candy highlight of this film, and a part of its flag waving aspect. The Condo Brothers also did a couple of nice tap dance numbers, and Betty's dance with Hermes Pan to "Once Too Often" is OK. Later, there is a Viennese waltz scene, with dancers in very fancy classical European dress, preceding and following Betty's rendition of a more contemporary "The Story of the Very Merry Widow".Betty also gets to do a couple other musical numbers, mostly two renditions of "Don't Carry Tales Out of School". The Charlie Spivak Orchestra provided most of the music.

Perhaps the most unexpected aspect of this film is the finale overly long marching drill exercise, with rifles, executed by a sizable unit of WACs, with Betty as their competent drill sergeant. Would have been nice to have had some musical accompaniment, as in Warner's "This is the Army". I guess the message was: If we run short of fighting men to help win this war, we have plenty of fighting women to back them up!

If you want to see the best Grable/Raye musical comedy, I recommend "Give Me a Sailor", as previously detailed. Betty looks even more beautiful at age 21 in that one. The emphasis is much more on comedy than music, with Bob Hope complementing Martha's comedy.

Splashy Technicolor musical with Betty Grable and Martha Raye has beautiful photography, Grable's incredible legs--although they're not featured as much as you'd think they'd be, considering they were what she was most famous for--and not a whole lot more. The musical numbers are for the most part uninspired, and the casting of unknown John Harvey as Grable's romantic interest was a big mistake. He's a bland, not particularly good actor who tries too hard to be the peppy "boy next door" type and has no chemistry at all with Grable. Dorothea Kent as Grable's sidekick is enjoyable but for some reason she vanishes about halfway through the film. Martha Raye, as always, gives it her best but the songs they stuck her with are, to be charitable, pedestrian and, in the case of "Yankee Doodle Hayride", downright stupid. Grable's "Don't Carry Tales Out of School" is boring--I have no idea why it's performed two different times in the film, as it doesn't get better with repetition. Raye's "Red Robins, Bobwhites and Bluebirds" is a juvenile time-waster and she looks almost embarrassed performing it--the lyrics are childish and the song makes virtually no sense. Just about the only number that has any spark at all is "Once Too Often", which Grable dances with the great Hermes Pan. It's not one of his or Grable's best, but compared to the rest of the numbers in this picture, it's a masterpiece. Joe E. Brown is an acquired taste, which I haven't acquired, but if you like him I guess this is as good a place to see him as any. The tap-dancing Condos Brothers are good, there's a campy but somewhat entertaining roller-skating number early in the film and a very bizarre and really out-of-place sequence at the end where Betty is a drill sergeant putting a female drill team through a series of complicated marching routines--it's almost surreal to watch her carrying a sword and shouting "Dress that line, there!" and "Hup, hip, hoop, harch!"--but even that dose of wartime weirdness doesn't do much for the picture. Overall it's a lower-rank, by-the-numbers effort from people who've done far better. Worth a look maybe just so you can say you've seen it, but other than that, there's not much reason to spend any time on it.

Perhaps back then this was seen as a bright and bubbly tribute to the Armed Forces everywhere, but surely BETTY GRABLE deserved better material for a musical with a title like PIN UP GIRL. She's pretty and pert as a secretary whose romance with a soldier goes from Boy Meets Girl, Boy Loses Girl, Boy Wins Girl in timeworn Hollywood fashion.

No help is the fact that MARTHA RAYE and JOE E. BROWN can usually be counted on to add gags and merriment to any film they're in. Here, they open their big mouths and nothing funny comes out.

The songs are weak, lacking interest even for Grable fans--with one exception. A nifty little number called "Once Too Often" has Betty doing a slit-skirt, torrid dance number with Hermes Pan, the famous choreographer who worked with Astaire and Rogers on many of their most famous routines. It's the only musical number worth staying awake for.

The climactic military number is a hoot, with Betty doing a parade of arms military drill that reminded me of my boot camp days.

Summing up: This is one you can afford to miss.