Michael Dunne Movies

A woman looks back at her childhood in show business in this musical comedy. At the turn of the century, Myrtle McKinley (Betty Grable) is working her way through business school and gets a job dancing at a San Francisco vaudeville house. She meets fellow hoofer Frank Burt (Dan Dailey), and they soon fall in love. Marriage follows, and Myrtle and Frank begin performing a song and dance act on the road. Myrtle leaves the act when she becomes pregnant with the first of two children, but when the kids are old enough to go out on tour, she and Frank work them into the act, and they learn to live out of a suitcase like their parents. Years later, Iris (Mona Freeman) and Mikie (Connie Marshall) are attending college when they learn that Mom and Dad have pulled their act out of mothballs -- and are booked to perform at a theatre near their campus. Mother Wore Tights won an Academy Award for Best Musical Score, and it was nominated for Best Song ("You Do") and Best Color Cinematography; the great Mexican ventriloquist Senor Wences appears as himself. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Doll Face is one of two attempts by 20th Century Fox to make a movie star out of crooner Perry Como (the other was If I'm Lucky). Actually, Como is but a cog in the wheel of the main plot, which involves Doll Face (Vivian Blaine), a stripteaser with artistic pretensions. On the advice of her manager/boyfriend, Mike Hannegan (Dennis O'Keefe), Doll Face undergoes a "refinement" process. The next step for the girl is to write an intellectual autobiography, for which ghostwriter Gerard (Michael Dunne) is engaged. Forget the plot, and concentrate on the production numbers performed with gusto by Blaine, Como, and Carmen Miranda. Doll Face is based on The Naked Genius, a play by Louise Hovick -- better known as striptease artist Gypsy Rose Lee. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide