My Blue Heaven

Wonderful Bette Grable and Dan Dailey fanfare dealing with a musical couple's hard luck in having their own child. They are forced to resort to adoption when a traffic accident causes the loss of her unborn child. We then see unscrupulous adoption procedures and other mayhem preventing this couple from having a child of their own.

The couple do a routine on television and Dailey along with Grable show they could still sing and dance at their best. In a brief role, Mitzi Gaynor, who would play Daley's daughter 4 years later in "There's No Business Like Showbusiness," turns up as a fellow dancer who is ready to flirt and take Daley away from Gable.

The wonderful is ending but we expected that. In such film predicaments, they usually do just that.

I got this as part of a 'boxed set' of Grable films, all delightful in their own way. This one (1950) had a few surprises. As others noted, maybe the censors were tiring of policing every little phrase & hint of sensuality, such that it is clear that Betty & her husband are quite happy as intimate partners and are trying to make a baby. The costumes and dances later in the film are daring for the time period, but quite tame compared to post-2000 flicks (and even the Pre-code stuff before 1933).

The technicolor was a delight and the musical portions were terrific-Dailey was more than equal as a dance partner, but retained a 'goofy husband' look, so we never take Mimi Gaynor's crush on him very seriously. We also see the impact of early TV on the entertainment culture, so-called, as Producers struggled to find talent that could be showcased on the new medium.

The couple suffer setbacks as they try to start a family, and I worried the tale would descend into a teary melodrama. Not so. Just stick with the story. Things turn around quickly, and our beloved couple dance their way to a satisfying conclusion.

8/10.

This TCF production looks like an attempt to update the standard 40's musical. Instead of romantic youngsters, there's Grable and Dailey as a mature married couple; and in place of the usual wispy storyline is a surprisingly biting one; while banal dialog is peppered with risqué throw-away lines; and most topically, there's that new-fangled livingroom monster, television. On the whole, however, the combination doesn't go down well.

For one, the main plot thread simply doesn't lend itself to light-hearted entertainment. Ping-ponging adoptive babies back and forth, plus an auto accident, is the stuff of dramatics, not fluff, and leads to abrupt interruptions in mood. Sure, Grable gets to show some acting chops, which I expect was the intention, but it comes at the expense of overall results. Then too, the musical numbers are forgettable, to say the least. But at least, big-budget TCF mounts them in splashy Technicolor keeping the eye entertained even when the ear isn't. And I agree with the reviewer who thinks the vibrant young Mitzi Gaynor steals the show. She's clearly on her way up the Hollywood ladder.

Anyway, Dailey and Grable hoof and warble well enough. But, unfortunately, the movie comes across as two Hollywood vets doing their best with difficult material, yet only partially succeeding.

My Blue Heaven which starred Dan Dailey and Betty Grable are a happy show business couple who started in vaudeville and now are going into that happy new medium television. This was one of the first films that dealt with the phenomenon of television. As Dailey says during the course of the film, right now only Milton Berle and Howdy Doody are in it, the field is wide open.

Dailey and Grable are a happy couple, but they'd even be happier with a child, in fact Betty loses a baby almost at the beginning of the film. Friends and sponsors, David Wayne and Jane Wyatt suggest adopting because three of their six are adopted. The rest of the film is a lighter treatment of the themes from A Penny Serenade. Things go a lot happier for Dailey and Grable than they did for Cary Grant and Irene Dunne.

Because they are a musical performing couple Grable and Dailey get a whole lot of numbers and there's even a few tossed in for Mitzi Gaynor who was doing her second film. What a pity she came along as late as she did, she would have been a Grade A star in the Thirties. Gaynor plays an eager young understudy who'd just as soon Grable stay out on maternity leave.

Other than the title song, there's nothing terribly memorable in the score that Harold Arlen and Ralph Blane wrote for My Blue Heaven. Of course very few songs are as memorable. Until Bing Crosby introduced White Christmas in Holiday Inn, My Blue Heaven was the largest selling song in history with Gene Austin's version topping the charts.

My Blue Heaven is a pleasant enough diversion. Grable and Dailey work well as a team together, you'll enjoy them.

One of Bettys more grown up movies and she does well. Strong acting on her part and always a joy to watch her sing and dance. Plot is melodramatic as was her Dolly Sisters movie. Some mistakes in the screenplay though. I go for realism and a couple of scenes had me confused due to sloppy writing. Toward the beginning when Bette and Dan go into their dressing room at the radio station, they confront their dog. A few lines and they leave by closing the door. The dog is still inside??? Who looks after him till the next day?? They don't take the dog home with them? Another example of poor writing is when the couple visit their writers and best friends at the farmhouse. They are are surprised to see the couples six kids and say they didn't know they had kids. WHAT?? They've known them for years and didn't know they had kids???? Didn't anyone, including the actors question this oddity?? So very strange. And while the friends/writers are in their NY place, who watched those six kids???? Debut of Mitzi Gaynor and she doesn't have much to do, but dances well.