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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.

Soon-to-be divorced Broadway musical performer is involved in an auto accident and acquires amnesia; estranged husband and best friend follow her to Miami, where she has reverted to her salad days of seven years prior and booked herself into a nightclub. Rather strange cut-price extravaganza from Twentieth Century-Fox has Betty Grable in and out of cockamamie outfits, singing tunes by Jule Styne and Leo Robin which include "It's a Hot Night in Alaska" (!) and a thudding number called "No Talent Joe" which surrounds Grable with muscle men dressed as Roman guards. Gwen Verdon pops up uncredited (except in the on-screen program!) for a duet with Betty in the movie's most bizarre number, a vaudeville-styled routine about bandits which turns into a ballroom blitz complete with candelabras and tuxedoed men in black masks. With so much nonsense taking place on-stage, one can easily ignore the contrived amnesia-line, which doesn't amount to anything anyway. Script was "suggested by" a story from Scott Darling and Erna Lazarus, the same story Fox filmed in 1940 under the title "He Married His Wife". *1/2 from ****

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.

I first saw this movie back in 1985 on cable and video taped it. What a wonderful performance by the cast of this movie! Betty Grable was fantastic, as usual. And yes, I agree that this was probably her best dancing role ever. It features many wonderful costumes and beautiful set design. The entire cast is to be commended on a job well done.

Well, being the nice person that I am, I allowed a friend of mine to borrow my video tape. Well, her husband recorded a football game that started right after the 20th Century Fox introduction and ended with "THE END". I have not been able to see this wonderful movie since and am anticipating the re-release of it in the near future.