Meet Me After the Show

Later period Betty Grable picture gives her a chance to hoof and sing in a succession of glamorous outfits so for her fans there is plenty to enjoy within.

The problems start when the picture moves offstage. The first issue is Betty's leading man. It's not just that he's played by the less than fascinating MacDonald Carey but the character is a buffoonish, offensive sexist. It's difficult today to listen to several of the characters refer to how Carey's Jeff molded Betty into a star out of so much raw clay, as if Grable wasn't talented or intelligent enough to make it on her own. But even back in the 50's his character's condescending attitude must have made him come across as a sexist jerk.

The second problem is the script's absurd set of circumstances which stretch the bounds of logic by using the tired amnesia trope. The picture is full of quality support, Eddie Albert, Irene Ryan and Fred Clark all add a bit of spice, but it's all in the service of a weak scenario.

Bright, cheery and shallow but if you have a rainy afternoon to fill there are worse ways.

Through the 1940s, Betty Grable was a top star with Twentieth Century-Fox. However, by the 50s her star started to dim somewhat and soon the quality of her pictures began to slip significantly. "Meet Me After the Show" is one of these films...with a script that really seemed second rate.

When the story begins, Delilah (Grable) and Jeff (MacDonald Carey) are happily married and very successful. He's a Broadway producer and she stars in his productions. However, when she starts to become jealous, she separates from him and makes his life difficult. In fact, I would go so far as to say she was a terrible person-- backing out of his show and destroying the production...and putting a lot of folks out of work. Naturally, Jeff is angry and before he can get revenge, she is involved in a minor traffic accident. She's bumped her head and now has amnesia!! She disappears--appearing where she used to be before she met Jeff...as if the last seven years have never taken place. The doctor insists she's faking it...Jeff isn't so sure. What I am sure of is that Grable completely embarrasses herself and the second portion of the film is just plain stupid....and seeing Grable ACTING like an 18 year-old when she looks significantly older is very sad. At this point, the film just tries too hard to be kooky...and it completely lost my interest.

Sadly, with films like this and a few other huge disappointments, soon her career would be over...over by about age 40.

Soon-to-be divorced Broadway musical performer is involved in an auto accident and acquires amnesia; estranged husband and best friend follow her to Miami, where she has reverted to her salad days of seven years prior and booked herself into a nightclub. Rather strange cut-price extravaganza from Twentieth Century-Fox has Betty Grable in and out of cockamamie outfits, singing tunes by Jule Styne and Leo Robin which include "It's a Hot Night in Alaska" (!) and a thudding number called "No Talent Joe" which surrounds Grable with muscle men dressed as Roman guards. Gwen Verdon pops up uncredited (except in the on-screen program!) for a duet with Betty in the movie's most bizarre number, a vaudeville-styled routine about bandits which turns into a ballroom blitz complete with candelabras and tuxedoed men in black masks. With so much nonsense taking place on-stage, one can easily ignore the contrived amnesia-line, which doesn't amount to anything anyway. Script was "suggested by" a story from Scott Darling and Erna Lazarus, the same story Fox filmed in 1940 under the title "He Married His Wife". *1/2 from ****

A standard Betty Grable Fox musical, with some swell Jack Cole choreography and a below-par Jule Styne-Leo Robin score, this backstage frolic compromises itself somewhat in the casting and a lot in the plotting, a tortured screenplay by director Richard Sale and Mary Loos. Betty's starring in a hit musical (good opening number) produced by hubby MacDonald Carey. MacDonald Carey? He's hardly an expert at musicals, though he does warble a little at one point, and he's playing a rotter, romancing a wealthy backer who happens to look like Lois Maxwell. Betty's also receiving heavy attention from her leading man, Eddie Albert, who did do musicals, but the casting still seems a little odd. Meantime the central couple gets a separation (but he's paying her alimony, without her divorcing him-how does that work?), and after a minor accident, she develops amnesia, or appears to, sending her down to Miami, where she lives like it's 1944 again and begins a romance with a buff Rory Calhoun. The contrivances pile up on top of one another, and the ending is rushed. Certainly the dances are the best thing, including a production number with Betty and a just-starting-out Gwen Verdon, who does get billing in the program insert. But you have to slog through some dreary story to get to them.

This is a delightful Grable flick with great music and fine production numbers. But whomever decided Carey would be the perfect husband for her deserves the Golden Raspberry.