L'île aux plaisirs

Nothing like a 20th Century Fox musical for color and energy!

Coney Island, remade later as Wabash Avenue, stars Betty Grable.

Grable stars here with George Montgomery, Cesar Romero, Phil Silvers, and Charles Winninger. The story is one of rivalry and deceit and un-pc segments.

Grable looks gorgeous. She so vivacious and sparkly, it's no wonder she was so popular. The acting is good - I love Phil Silvers, he's always funny. Montgomery and Romero were so handsome, they made good rivals for Betty's affection.

The music was nothing to write home about, though the scenes when Betty was working for Hammerstein were lavish.

Enjoyable.

I have a statement: I again protest at Turner Classic Movie trying to rewrite history. Their books, the 50 Greatest Leading Men and the 50 Greatest Leading Ladies don't include actors who were pretty much exclusive to 20th Century Fox.

Betty Grable was in the top 10 box office for 10 years, and she's not included. Tyrone Power was the 21st most popular male in film history, and that includes Harrison Ford, Hanks, Cruise, etc. According to the Cogerson Book, the 50 Greatest Stars: Statistically Speaking, and he didn't make it either.

When TCM did a documentary on 1939, they quickly mentioned Jesse James was #4 box office that year - very quickly. After all, they don't own it. (I realize that the top box office lists aren't all the same).

Twentieth Century Fox stars were not people who did a little acting on the side. TCM, get with it.

Color films were at a premium during the war years, but when one of the reigning sex symbols of the era was starring in a film, the technicolor cameras were rolling. In Coney Island, the better to catch Betty Grable's blond All Americans looks and those gorgeous legs of her's, on prominent display as a turn of the last century entertainer working in a club in Coney Island.

A few years earlier the roles played by George Montgomery and Cesar Romero would have gone to Tyrone Power and Don Ameche. But both these guys would never have been second billed to Betty Grable now and this film is strictly her show.

Romero is a club owner in Coney Island where former partner and rival George Montgomery tries to chisel in. But one look at Grable who Romero considered his and they become rivals in love as well as business.

Montgomery totally had Ty Power's hero/heel character right down to perfection. It's so obvious that his part was originally written for Power. 1943 was the year Power went in the Marines so I really think it likely.

Brooklyn had two landmarks of note that the world knew about. One was Ebbets Field where the Dodgers played and the other was that entertainment mecca, Coney Island. The Dodgers are gone and Coney Island looks a bit frayed around the edges, but you can still see some traces of the glamor of the period that Betty and the cast are portraying. At least Nathan's Hotdogs is still operating though they wouldn't come into being until long after the era that this film is set in was over.

Coney Island had some original songs written by the former Paramount team of Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger, but the interpolated period songs gave Betty Grable her best vocal opportunities. Her rendition of Cuddle Up A Little Closer is a classic and the song after almost 40 years enjoyed a bit of a revival then. Betty didn't join in it though because Darryl Zanuck banned his stars from commercial recordings. Scoring the whole business was done by Alfred Newman who received an Academy Award nomination for his work. He actually won an Oscar that year, but for scoring the dramatic picture, The Song Of Bernadette.

The plot is thin, but the players put it over and Coney Island is one of Betty Grable's best films from the height of her career.

Betty Grable is a nightclub singer-dancer in turn-of-the-century Coney Island whose boss/boyfriend (Cesar Romero) is tricked into hiring his childhood friend/nemesis (George Montgomery) as a show manager. Montgomery is intent on making flashy, hyperkinetic Grable sing and dance like a lady, which she resists, but the results put stars in both their eyes, and soon Montgomery is planning on opening his own nightclub--with Grable as the star attraction. Fox musical was so popular, the studio remade it--with Grable--just seven years later as "Wabash Avenue". She's terrific here, snapping off her lines with streetwise cynicism, her beauty mark usually in a different location. Fox overloads the film's musical moments with specialty numbers--a Plantation number, a Louisiana showboat number, a Christmas number, an Irish number, etc.--but what really makes Grable shine are her ballads delivered standing still (just like her character is told to do). Montgomery is rather like a riverboat cardsharp--slick and cunning, he never elicits our feelings--but he's preferable to Romero, who acts with his teeth. Phil Silvers is less offensive than usual in support, and the soundtrack has some gems including "Cuddle Up a Little Closer", "Pretty Baby" and the title song. **1/2 from ****

CONEY ISLAND was such a successful Fox musical that seven years later it was turned into another starring vehicle for Grable called WABASH AVENUE. It's a breezy turn-of-the-century show biz tale about two Coney Island hucksters and the tricks they play on each other to win patrons at their establishments.

Betty is the brassy singer with the garish costumes and exaggerated singing/dancing style that Montgomery has to tone down by tying her to a prop so she can't move but has to deliver her ballad ("Cuddle Up A Little Closer") without gyrating all over the stage. Naturally, the love/hate relationship blooms into romance with Grable and Montgomery making a pleasing match as a team.

Lost of comedy relief from PHIL SILVERS and CHARLES WINNINGER, some nice song and dance numbers for Grable, and the whole backstage story is easy to take, the usual misunderstandings and schemes backfiring before the fadeout to a happy ending.

For BETTY GRABLE's fans, this one has to be rated one of her best.

Was very shocked 15 seconds into the film to see a character in blackface. Later there is an entire musical number in blackface. Lastly, the grand finale has a number in blackface as well. Is it just a sign of the times the film was made in? I guess. Do I have to celebrate it, or recommend it? No, I don't and no, I can't.

I would allow that it works as a historical document, of sorts. Of a kind of entertainment that was wiped out by rock'n'roll. Cesar Romero delivers his usual classy, excellent performance. The leading lady was unfortunately portrayed as dumb enough to be manipulated at every turn, a mere chit in the 2 guys' competitive rivalry.