Folies de Broadway

Released in 1951, Betty Grable's star was beginning to fade. Fox cast her in this role, which demanded a great deal more dancing than the usual Grable fair. Working with choreographer, Jack Cole, Betty gives one of her finest dancing performances on film. The film is funny, fast paced and delightful. Grable shines not only as a hoofer, but as a comedianne is this light-hearted romp of love and amnesia. Gwen Verdon appears alongside Grable in several dance numbers. McDonald Carey, Rory Calhoun and Eddie Albert are all superb in their roles of the past and present loves of Kitty Lee (Betty Grable). Memorable lines and songs are abundant in this film. This is a must-see for all Grable fans.

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.

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.

This 1951 film is another backstage musical, a typical format for Betty Grable. Unfortunately, this musical suffers from a mediocre score. Even though the composers were the well-known Jule Styne and Leo Robin, none of the songs in this film come anywhere close to the quality of their other compositions (e.g. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes).

In part of the first production number, Grable does a very good, skillful tap dance joined by two male dancers. This was the time when tap dancing was giving way to jazz as the predominant style of dance in film, brought on by Jack Cole and Bob Fosse. While Grable was certainly technically proficient enough for that style in the other production numbers, in my opinion, it just doesn't seem to suit her persona.

What is choreographer Jack Cole's production number, "No Talent Joe", all about? With a chorus of muscle men attired in classical Greek costumes and tan makeup suggesting statuary, and herself wearing a beachcomber outfit, Grable sings a Latin/Calypso song. What a mishmash!

I suggest this might have been a homo-erotic fantasy interjected by choreographer Cole. He did a similar thing when choreographing 1953's "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", with Jane Russell surrounded by gyrating nearly naked athletes.

Two other interesting points of trivia. The Miami film sequence is footage lifted directly from Grable's 1941 film, "Moon Over Miami". Also, take a good look at the set, props and the women's costumes in the last production number of the film. You will see very similar in 1953's "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" in the "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend" production number. This probably due to the fact that Charles Le Maire and Travilla did costumes for both films, while Cole did the choreography for both.

While most musicals are excusably weak in the plot department, the plot is this film is downright dumb. Viewing this film would be enjoyable only for the die-hard Betty Grable fan. It's been resurrected recently on the Fox Movie Channel. Record it and skip everything but the musical numbers.

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.