La soñadora

Betty Hutton runs a bookstore with no customers and has written a novel which no one will publish. She's enamored of her brother-in-law, Patric Knowles, and very annoyed by know-it-all sports reporter McDonald Carey. She also is prone to go into trances in which she imagines herself doing something great or noble.

It's based on a play by Elmer Rice, but I can't tell if it's a bad play or director Mitchell Leisen was trying to sabotage Miss Hutton's career. Her character is unfocused enough as it is, but she plays it with bad make-up and a flat, nasal voice. It's a character which, in a well-run comedy, would receive a kick in the pants and get on with things. Instead, thanks to a screenplay by Arthur Sheekman, no such thing happens. It just wanders through several scenes in which she and Carey snap at each other, making sure we thoroughly dislike each, hoping they will get together so they can make each other thoroughly miserable.

Miss Hutton was 27 when she made this, pretty far from the young jitterbugger she had portrayed eight years earlier. Apparently the jitterbug had fallen out of favor, and Paramount was trying to make a new star persona for her. With vehicles like this, the public had no interest in cooperating.

Surprisingly funny little comedy about a day-dreaming young woman who meets her match in a tough sports writer. Based on a hit play by Elmer Rice.

Betty Hutton stars as the dreamer, a woman who walks through life and dreams about "something happening." Then boorish Macdonald Carey arrives for her sister's wedding and he spends the rest of the film trying to get her to live her own life. The "Walter Mitty" stuff is kept to a minimum. and the plot drags in a few places, but the actors are excellent and the one-liners are very funny.

Zamah Cunningham is a total delight as the music teacher, stealing the long scene with her spastic movements and great voice.. Patric Knowles is the brother-in-law, Walter Abel and Peggy Wood are the parents. Virginia Field is the sister. Carolyn Butler is Claire. And Lowell Gilmore is the roue.

Hutton is low-keyed and still very funny. She plays a saloon singer in one dream and sings "Madame Butterfly" in another. As usual, Hutton is excellent. And this is one of the few films I've liked Macdonald Carey in. A must for Betty Hutton fans.

The author of Street Scene Elmer Rice wrote Dream Girl and it ran for 348 performances on Broadway during the 1945-46 season. On stage the stars were Betty Field and Wendell Corey. It must have had something a bit more going for it than this film version.

It has Betty Hutton and maybe had Preston Sturges still been with Paramount he might have done something more. Dream Girl seems like a hybrid workm part Walter Mitty, part Strange Interlude and a bit of Lady In The Dark thrown in for good measure,

Betty's part is that of a dreamy girl who is constantly giving way to imagining fantasies, especially about the men in her life and more not those. She's got a thing for Patric Knowles who is married to her sister Virginia Field, but there's a lot less to Knowles than meets the eye.

The one to set here on a path of reality is Macdonald Carey a cynical newspaperman (is there another kind in movies). But he has his work cut out for him.

Dream Girl is passably good and it could have doe more for Hutton's career. But I don't think she was properly directed.

A Betty Hutton fan for virtually her entire career, I haven't seen this since it was first issued & wonder why it's been neglected. Granted, she didn't sing much (if at all), but it's an interesting vehicle for her comic talents. She plays a female Walter Mitty who imagines herself in numerous extreme situations. I can remember only Sadie Thompson in a seedy South Sea saloon, & Cio-Cio-San in Madame Butterfly, lip-synching someone else's rendition of "Un Bel Di."

Hutton's best work, both musically & dramatically, has also been neglected by VHS & DVD. Somebody Loves Me, based on the lives of vaudevillians Blossom Seeley & her husband, played by Ralph Meeker. Billie Byrd also had a choice wise-cracking role.

I like it, because it's one of those simple, harmless, cozy old movies that the b&w movie age was so adept at. But, as those movies go, it's one of the lesser of its kind.

Despite this movie not really hitting the spot with me, I must admit that I do identify with it on a personal level. The lead character, played by Betty Hutton, is basically me in another form! But I digress...

If you've seen the Ginger Rogers movie, "Tom, Dick, and Harry," you'll recognize this as a sort of wannabe of that. Except, it doesn't hold a candle to it. And if you like the movie "What A Way to Go" - this is in that same vein as well. Different, but similar. And if you haven't seen either of those, but left this movie unsatisfied, check them out!

It's a testament to how good these old movies actually are, that even the lousy ones are OK. This is one of those.

On another note, Betty Hutton is pretty impressive with how annoying she can be in the way. She changes her voice and stuff. In other movies I've seen, she's absolutely adorable. But in this one, she has the most grating affectation! That's showbiz! And oddly enough, it makes me wanna watch more of her.

This movie is strange for another reason too - as it opens, one is never sure what era it takes place in. In fact, that was one of the reasons I stuck with it to the end, just to see if I would get a definitive answer.

An odd little film.

One stand out piece of trivia about it, though, is that Lucille Ball starred in the stage production that this movie was based on. I believe she was filling in for another actress. But it was Lucy that made this movie stand out to me. And I just know she would've done the role justice!

This movie reminds me of another favorite movie star of mine as well, Deanna Durbin - because at some point in the film, a song from the opera "Madame Butterfly" is feature featured, reaffirming my love of opera.

Yes, an odd little film. One that's not half bad though.