Betty Hutton Movies

This documentary, made for PBS' American Masters series, explores the life and career of the renowned screenwriter and director Preston Sturges (1898-1959), whose few but very influential films managed to change the entire film industry. The documentary features clips from his films, and interviews with those who knew him well, including ex-wives. He was the first screenwriter to make the move to become a film director. He is best known for his unerringly light touch in dealing humorously with difficult topics, and directed one of the first widely successful spoofs of Hollywood, The Great McGinty. The director had a life as eventful and fraught with coincidences as anything in the movies, and this is recounted also. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This evening of musical magic includes some of the greatest jazz artists and their exciting performances. ~ Rovi

Written and directed by Irving Brecher, best known for his weekly TV series Life of Riley and The People's Choice, Somebody Loves Me is the highly fictionalized life story of vaudeville and Broadway star Blossom Seeley (Betty Hutton) and her husband-partner Benny Fields (Ralph Meeker). Unflatteringly, the film depicts Fields as something of an opportunist, who maneuvers Blossom into marriage for the benefit of his own career. Eventually he does penance for his callousness, particularly in a scene wherein Fields is reduced to playing straight for a pair of crummy Burlesque comedians. Meanwhile, Blossom also goes into an eclipse as a "single." The tearful finale is, like the rest of the film, a bit at odds with the truth, but effective nonetheless. Betty Hutton does pretty well as Seeley, even though she looks and sounds nothing like genuine article; Meeker seems uncomfortable, except when lip-synching to the prerecorded voice of Pat Morgan as Benny Fields. Jack Benny makes an amusing cameo appearance. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Using elements of two earlier films, The Fleet's In and Lady Be Careful, Paramount came up with the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis vehicle Sailor Beware. As usual, Jerry Lewis is the helpless goof and Dean Martin the suave ladies' man; this time Lewis is a navy recruit while Martin is his submarine-officer buddy. The film skips from one comic setpiece to another (the best is a parody of radio audience participation shows) until it reaches the slapstick climax: A boxing match pitting Lewis against the navy champion. After a few very funny moments in which Lewis pretends to be a punch drunk pug, the match commences, much to the dismay of Lewis and the delight of his fervent fan following. Martin makes good use of his screen time by romancing an "ice princess" movie star (Corinne Calvert), who of course melts once Dino turns on the charm. Betty Hutton, star of Sailor Beware's precursor The Fleet's In, pops up at the beginning and end of the Martin/Lewis epic as "Hetty Button." And watch for an unbilled James Dean as one of the team's shipmates. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Fred Astaire and Betty Hutton make a surprisingly copacetic screen team in Let's Dance. Hutton plays a more sedate role than usual as war widow Kitty McNeil. Not wishing to have her young son Richard (Gregory Moffatt) grow up in the stiff and stuffy environs of her Boston in-laws' mansion, Kitty sneaks off with the kid and resumes her prewar show-business career. She is reunited with her USO dancing partner Donald Elwood (Astaire), who hopes to give up performing in favor of the business world. Inevitably, Kitty and Donald resume their old act, while, equally inevitably, Kitty's Bostonite grandmother-in-law Serena Everett (Lucille Watson) sets the legal wheels in motion to gain custody of little Richard. Fred Astaire manages to match Betty Hutton's patented raucousness during the hillbilly musical number "Oh, Them Dudes", though he is given the opportunity to do the sort of dancing he does best--notably a brilliant routine atop and around a piano. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Elmer Rice's clever stage comedy Dream Girl is Hollywoodized and "dumbed down" almost beyond recognition in this 1948 film version. In place of the original play's Betty Field, Betty Hutton stars Georgina Allerton, who periodically escapes her humdrum existence by retreating into elaborate daydreams. Georgina's fantasy excursions disturb her parents (Walter Abel and Peggy Wood) and her married sister (Virginia Field), who wish that she'd grow up already and stop all this nonsense. Only when she falls truly in love with Clark Redfield (Macdonald Carey) does Georgina abandon her dream world. Like the previous year's Secret Life of Walter Mitty, the film version of Dream Girl substitutes the quiet whimsy of its source with slapstick and overstatement; additionally, Elmer Rice's three-dimensional supporting characters are transformed into cardboard stereotypes. And just so the audience doesn't miss anything, the producers have added a voiceover narration to explain what has just been seen. With all this going against Dream Girl, Betty Hutton emerges unscathed, delivering a lot better performance than her material warrants. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

True Confession was one of the unfunniest of the "screwball" comedies of the 1930s, and its musical remake, Cross My Heart, isn't much of an improvement. Betty Hutton steps into the old Carole Lombard role as Peggy, a compulsive liar who'll do anything to help her attorney fiance Oliver Clarke (Sonny Tufts) get ahead. When it looks as though an unsolved murder case will be Clarke's ticket to success, Peggy, sticking her tongue in her cheek (as she always does when she's about to tell a whopper), glibly confesses to the killing. Peggy's plan is to allow her boyfriend to prove her innocence, thereby cementing his reputation as a man of integrity-but things don't go quite as planned. The subsequent trial is enlivened by the antics of looney Russian actor Peter (Michael Chekhov), who may or may not be the actual murderer. Betty Hutton's song numbers are just about as mediocre as the rest of the film. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Incendiary Blonde is a highly entertaining if historically suspect biopic of "Queen of the Nightclubs" Texas Guinan. As played (or overplayed) by Betty Hutton, Guinan is a hoydenish Texas gal whose showbiz career gets under way when she joins a Wild West show in 1909. A favorite with male patrons because of her salty vocabulary and what-the-hell attitude, Guinan rises to fame as a Broadway musical-comedy star and movie actress, only to crash-land after an unhappy marriage to her manager Tim Callahan (Bill Goodwin). Taking advantage of Prohibition, Guinan opens the first of several nightclubs, fending off the Feds while welcome her customers with an insouciant "Hello, sucker!" Naturally, Betty Hutton is given several opportunities to sing and dance, which she does with her usual unbridled enthusiasm. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This peppy wartime musical stars Bing Crosby as radio crooner Johnny Cabot, the heartthrob of millions. To escape his frenzied fans, Johnny joins the Navy, where is he ordering to aid a WAVE recruiting drive. He is helped(?) in this endeavor by Betty Hutton, amusingly cast in a dual role as twin sisters Susie and Rosemary, one a shy retiring brunette, the other a bold and brassy blonde (Vera Marshe doubles for Hutton is some scenes). Part of Johnny's recruiting strategy is to stage a musical show, as good an excuse as any for a steady stream of bouncy musical numbers. This is the film in which Bing Crosby and Sonny Tufts, both in blackface, introduce the Johnny Mercer-Harold Arlen standard "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive." Sharp-eyed viewers will spot Yvonne de Carlo, Mona Freeman, Mae Clarke, and Noel "Lois Lane" Neill in small roles. Here Come the Waves was partially remade by Martin & Lewis as Sailor Beware. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

And The Angels Sing is an odd smorgasbord of musical-comedy and romance -- part screwball comedy, part backstage musical, part pop music showcase, and all of it actually a mash-up/remake of two earlier Paramount titles, Every Night At Eight (1935) and Sing You Sinners (1937) (which had also co-starred Fred MacMurray). Dorothy Lamour, Betty Hutton, Diana Lynn, and Mimi Chandler play, respectively, Nancy Angel, Bobby Angel, Josie Angel, and Patti Angel, the four daughters of widowered inventor/farmer "Pop" Angel (Raymond Walburn). All four daughters have ambitions as artists, writers etc. But they're only good at the one thing they've actually been trained to do, i.e. singing -- which they hate doing, especially together. The four desire independence from each other, but lack the means to achieve it, all of which wears on their loving but long-suffering father, who only wants to get enough money together to buy a small soybean farm. When Bobby ropes them into singing for a band led by Happy Marshall Fred MacMurray, the fur really begins to fly -- Happy puts the romantic moves on Nancy before he realizes she's part of the singing act he's booked; but it's Bobby whole managed to fall in love with him. And matters get even more complicated when the Angel sisters, presenting an act worthy of the Andrews Sisters, go over well with the audience. And that's before Happy is forced by circumstances to cheat the girls not only out of the $40 they earned, but the $190 that Bobby won. Misunderstanding and mistakes pile up on top of each other as the Angel sisters follow Happy to Brooklyn, get him tossed out of the club he's booked in, lose him his band, and reduce him and his partner Fuzzy Johnson (Eddie Foy, Jr.) to doing an embarrassing singing waiter act (for coins tossed to them), all in a quest to return the girls' money. In the process, the Angel sisters display loyalty and devotion to each other, and a strength in numbers and unity that's only undone by their own father. The music is entertaining, though the title song is only heard as an instrumental performed by Happy's band -- Betty Hutton's scatting is one highlight, and the Angel sisters' act is fun as well. Some of the better comic bits, apart from Raymond Walburn's blustery expressions of temper, include the backstage antics of Happy and his band; a great extended bit based on Brooklyn dialect featuring Dorothy Lamour and Frank Faylen (as Herman...er...Hoiman); and the slapstick bits involving the girls fending off various men. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

In this, the third screen adaptation of the musical revue Sailor Beware, William Holden plays Casey Kirby, a shy sailor who through a series of misunderstandings develops a reputation as a world-class lady-killer. In order to save face, Casey has to persuade "The Countess of Swingland" (Dorothy Lamour), a popular Big Band vocalist, to give him a big kiss in public. But the Countess is no pushover and has little sympathy for sob stories, so Casey soon learns his work is cut out for him. The Countess' best friend, Bessie Dale (Betty Hutton), is a bit less shy around the menfolk and sets her sights on Casey's buddy Barney Waters (Eddie Bracken). Betty Hutton made her screen debut in this movie, and she sings the novelty number "Arthur Murray Taught Me Dancing in a Hurry." Hutton is backed by Jimmy Dorsey and his Orchestra, who also perform several other numbers, including their hit "Tangerine." ~ Mark Deming, Rovi