Mother Wore Tights

In what turned out to be his first film since his discharge from the Navy after World War II, Dan Dailey gets to co-star with Betty Grable in the first of four films they did together. Lucky break for Dailey as Grable was at the top of her pinup girl popularity.

Mother Wore Tights is based on a book my Miriam Young whose character is the youngest of the two sisters of this vaudeville family and played at her oldest in the film by Connie Marshall. The story is her family memoir and takes us back to Grable and Dailey as young high school graduate and young vaudevillian song and dance man.

It takes a while, but Grable manages to make the act a double on stage and in life. Grable's not terribly convincing as a teenager, she was a little long in the tooth, but really I don't think the audience cared.

Dan Dailey is always been a marvel to me, a fine dramatic actor as well as a great song and dance man. I did love those spiffy and goofy costumes he wore when in stage character.

Mother Wore Tights earned three Academy Award nominations, color cinematography, musical scoring, and for Best Song, You Do one of the original songs written by Josef Myrow and Mack Gordon. You can get bootleg recordings off the soundtrack of Mother Wore Tights and most of Grable's films as she never made too many trips to the recording studios as per Darryl Zanuck's edict to his musical stars.

Mother Wore Tights is a fine piece of nostalgic cinema, so typical of the color musicals 20th Century Fox did with their players. Very charming and exhibits the talents of its leads very well.

While BETTY GRABLE was never in the same league with Ginger Rogers or Rita Hayworth as a dancer, she does manage to keep up nicely with DAN DAILEY in this pleasant backstage musical of a vaudeville couple who become a dance team, marry and raise a family. The voice-over narration is by none other than ANNE BAXTER, although MONA FREEMAN and CONNIE MARSHALL play the couple's children.

Grable is still at the height of her box-office popularity here, charming in the song-and-dance routines that show off her shapely figure and modest talents as a dancer, while Dailey is at his breezy best as her highly confident partner.

By today's standards, it's no doubt going to find some who find it too schmaltzy and corny but fans of the escapist movies of the '40s will no doubt succumb to its charms.

Alfred Newman's musical score won a Best Musical Score Oscar and the film had two nominations for Color Cinematography and the song "You Do". The musical numbers are light and entertaining, my personal favorite being the "Kokomo, Indiana" song-and-dance, although the Oscar winning ballad is nice enough.

But there's nothing special here. Grable fans might be disappointed that the musical numbers aren't more lavish (or as garish as they usually are in a Grable film), but the story has some warm appeal that makes up for the neglected gaudier aspects.

Trivia note: An actor named STEPHEN DUNNE (as Roy), bears a remarkable resemblance to GEORGE MONTGOMERY. Could be his twin brother!!

"Mother Wore Tights" is an easy going, easy-to-take musical comedy/drama of the kind Hollywood no longer makes. It is quintessential family fare with something for everyone, with two attractive and talented stars playing off one another and exhibiting the necessary chemistry required for most successful movie match-ups. Especially good are the song-and-dance numbers with Betty Grable and Dan Dailey, who play a married vaudeville team who separate when she finds she is expecting. They are surrounded by a good supporting cast, including William Frawley, Sara Allgood and with Mona Freeman and Connie Marshall as the daughters of the vaudeville duo... and when was the last time you saw Senor Wences? (I think I'm talking to older reviewers now).

This one has all the usual trappings of a Fox musical except that it lacks good songs. The big production number, "You Do", got an Oscar nomination but is just passable, and is delivered heavy on the syrup. The better song is "Kokomo, Indiana", which I thought was the best song and dance number in the picture and is Grable and Dailey at their best.

This picture is still a good example of 'G' rated movie entertainment and should appeal to moviegoers of all ages. It just needed 1 blockbuster number to make it a great movie - as is, it is good enough for a rating of seven.

I saw this movie when it was "first run" in 1947. Betty Grable was at the height of her popularity and "Mother Wore Tights" helped her to remain as the highest paid woman of that year. The back-stage story, a cliché and, perhaps, quite trite in 2005, was fresh, especially because of the family element: two Vaudevilians raising their two daughters, one of whom provides the voice-over narration (done by Anne Baxter). Visually, the film is spectacularly Technicolorful. The songs and dancing are typical of the era and delightfully entertaining. While "You Do" was nominated for Best Song, I think that "Kokomo, Indiana" is a better candidate. This is one of the best of Betty Grable's films, and for the first time she has a male partner in Dan Dailey who is more than just a dancing extra. After almost fifty years, the film is still fun to watch. It's too bad that a similarly appealing film, the 1948 "When My Baby Smiles At Me" with Grable and Dailey, is not available.

I was a youngster when I first saw this and sadly it is never reshown on the cable networks, yhis was made when hollywood was at it;s best. warm,family musicals that you left the theatre feeling good. how un fortunate my grandchildren with all the cgi films of today never get to see the simple realistic and romantic movies of that era..everything seems served up on this imaginary sterile techno story that your imagination never gets utilised,