When My Baby Smiles at Me

I was expecting a standard comedy song & dance film, so was very surprised to find instead a DRAMA film, all about the song & dance business.

It is a super movie. Well acted. And with a surprising performance by Dan Dailey as the comic performer who finds the pressure of the big-time stage all too much. I had started watching this film just because I love Dailey's style - funny, a super dancer, a good songster, and with a great grin. He is an addition to the pile of Hollywood dancers - Astaire, Kelly, etc. - and, IMHO, Dailey all too often gets forgotten amongst the razzmatazz and stardom of the other performers.

So it was a delight to see Dailey portray a role that is beyond just music & dance. And he shows such acting perfection. I later found he had been nominated for Best Actor at the Oscars that year, but - no surprise when the movie was placed against Olivier in 'Hamlet' - he lost.

But it is a credit that Dailey was nominated. And justifiably so. He fills out the 1920s' character with credo. And he worked hard in the film.

Yes, the movie does lack something. So it's not one of the best films I've ever seen. It's much stronger on dance that vocals. Bu, then, that's vaudeville for you!

Betty Grable performs ably, as ever, but I never look out for her films . . . I feel she lacks any 'zing' in a lot of her roles. She dances like a dream, of course. And carries a good tune. But I think those mega-insured legs of hers might have been more of a hindrance than a help in her career - purely because she had to look after her legs over and above anything else! And what dancer can perform with both performance freedom AND safety, especially on what looked like 4-inch shoe heels, without panicking . . . ?! Kudos to Grable that she dared to dance at all!

The two best friend characters are excellent, as is the supporter in the theatre manager. It really is a wonderfully acted film. So well done to the cast.

So it doesn't really matter that the film isn't a grandstand in the way it is made, nor has any phenomenal song/dances. After all, the performers are largely performing known numbers of the vaudeville era! No, this film stands on its merits as a tale of the pressures of being a successful stage lead. That is the backbone of the film. The movie is about the WORLD of singing & dancing, not an excuse to create some stand-out new numbers.

It could be said that this film shares the premise of 'A Star Is Born', just changed to be set in the world of theatre & burlesque. That Esther Blodgett/Norman Maine story had first been made back in 1937. It too was nominated for Oscars. So, yes, Hollywood does love not only a good film, but one that inspects their own challenging world! (And it still does: think of this year's dramatic movie 'The Substance'.)

But, nonetheless, the story is a tale of love & loss. There is little to negatively critique in the film. And for Dailey it is a deserving role. I hope he was pleased with the nomination, as praise for his abilities. It's a shame that back in the heyday of La La Land there wasn't a best actor in a MUSICAL nomination. After all, they made enough song & dance movies in those days, to warrant such a category! I am SURE Dailey would have won in 1948 under those circumstances.

Betty Grable and Dan Dailey fare quite well in this musical comedy-drama which, initially, appears to have come straight off the '40s-era assembly line at 20th Century-Fox Studios. Based on the play "Burlesque" by Arthur Hopkins and George Manker Watters, the atypically complicated plot concerns a married couple, stage performers in the 1920s, who are separated after the husband gets a shot on Broadway and the wife gets stuck behind on the road. The twosome remain devoted to each other until it leaks in the press he has been spending lots of free time with a pretty new co-star--the wife's nemesis! Grable wears a cockamamie hairdo throughout (and her only good song, "What Did I Do?", is hampered by poor choreography), though she's sweet in her backstage scenes, joshing with pals Jack Oakie and June Havoc, and playing flattered star to handsome admirer Richard Arlen. Dailey, on the other hand, received an Oscar nomination for his work, and it's easy to see why; walking a fine line between pathos and comedy, he's portraying a talented alcoholic, desperate to keep the peace while needing an outlet for his own frustrations (one senses he isn't so much insecure as he is a grown-up child who needs a firm, upstanding mother-figure to guide him). The picture doesn't really get into the masochism build into the plot's formula. Grable can see that her husband "Skid" is on the skids, floundering and helpless--his own worst enemy--yet Grable's loving responses to him are a tad bit insane. Sure, she's noble by lending a helping hand, but the movie-makers equate her kind gestures with a selflessness that goes beyond the call of duty. Betty isn't an enabler, per se--the point is made that her unconditional devotion will turn everything right again--but how many people actually bought this 'happy ending'? I didn't find it very convincing, but 1948 was really too early for Hollywood musicals to become dark and probing. For its time, this was probably just the tonic for matinée audiences hoping to shake the blues away. **1/2 from ****

I saw this movie several times on television back in the 1970s, so my comments come from a rather distant memory. This film was typical of 20th Century Fox's output of Betty Grable films during the mid to late 1940s. A remake of Paramount's and Hal Skelly's DANCE OF LIFE (1929) and a further remake by Paramount in 1937 called SWING HIGH, SWING LOW starring Carole Lombard, the story is all about an alcoholic burlesque performer, played by Dan Dailey, who brings down not only himself but also his wife, played by Grable. Jack Oakie, June Haver, James Gleason, and Richard Arlen (!) are also in it. The most vivid memory I have of the film is Dan Dailey's Oscar nominated performance. I remember being impressed by him and finding him both believable and sympathetic. His performance lifts the film above the average Betty Grable nostalgia vehicle. The two stars were always good together, even though the material was usually recycled and mundane, sometimes wallowing in nostalgia and overproduction. Most feel Dailey's nomination for the Oscar a travesty: he took the place that many feel belonged to Humphrey Bogart in TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE. Bogart certainly deserved recognition for his work in that film, but Dailey's work here also warrants mention.

Directed by Walter Lang (of course), it's based on the play BURLESQUE.

One point for the technicolour costumes, 1 point for Betty Grable and 1 point for the uptempo song and dance numbers even though Dan Dailey manages to completely murder the song "Don't Bring Lulu".

Dailey (Skid) is a vaudeville entertainer along with wife Betty Grable (Bonny). He gets an opportunity elsewhere but messes up and returns to play happy families.....Wow......how boring was that! The cast are unlikable apart from Grable but even she demonstrates unreasonable and unrealistic behavioural traits when it comes to her relationship with Dailey. This film gave my wife cushion rage which manifested itself at the end of the film. We wanted to like this film but just couldn't. I dozed off as it was so boring. Dailey was nominated for an oscar!!!!!!!!!! WTF!!!! It's a corny load of nonsense.

Dan Dailey is a hoofer who goes from burlesque houses to Broadway, leaving wife Betty Grable behind. When she catches up with him, he's developed a drinking problem.

It's the third big-screen version of Hopkins-Watter play Burlesque, and it's given the Technicolor gloss that the company gave to all of Miss Grable's musicals in the period. The musical numbers are baggy-pants affairs. It's directed by Walter Lang, Fox's specialist for musical dramas, but since it's a vehicle for Miss Grable, everything is sunny.

Dailey was nominated for the Oscar for Best Actor. For some reason, he lost to Laurence Olivier's performance in a little number called HAMLET.