Pin Up Girl

Note that the legendary Hermes Pan is the guy dancing with Grable in the wild "Once Too Often" number. He was the guy who worked with Fred Astaire to choreograph and practice most of his dance numbers in the 30's Fred-and-Ginger films.

This musical/comedy fluff was harmless fun for a nation at war. We get the troop's number one pinup gal, big band music, song and dance numbers, a cotton candy plot, and it's all in Technicolor! Anybody interested in the WWII era will enjoy watching this film, just imagine yourself as one of the boys in uniform or as Rosie the Riveter. The final musical routine with Betty marching with & drilling 2 companies of military women is well executed and must have been just what America wanted to see at the time. Remember: Buy U.S. War Bonds. Available at this theater.

A girl from the Midwest breaks into show biz, becoming the toast of returning servicemen, but has to disguise herself in the process.

Not one of Grable's better musicals, but still has its share of entertainment. Grable's sparkling, of course, and the Technicolor is great, along with the costuming. The trouble is the tunes are forgettable, while the curtain-closer of girls doing close-order drill goes on about 5-minutes too long. I must say, however, the girls manage a precision that would be the envy of a company of Marines.

Now no one takes the storyline of a musical as anything more than a rack to hang the musical hat on. Here, however, the storyline is kind of dumb when Lorry (Grable) fools everyone just by putting on eye-glasses! Now, I'm prepared to believe a lot for movie's sake, but not that the Grable figure or blonde tresses can be disguised just by putting on a pair of glasses. Then too, leading man Harvey is a nice guy, but a little short in the charisma department. On the other hand, there's the incomparable pairing of Martha Raye and Joe E. Brown, in a battle of comically over-sized mouths. Anyway, except for a couple flat dialog scenes, there's enough overall energy to lift the spirits of wartime audiences, while there's always the incomparable Grable for the rest of us.

I've just seen Pin Up Girl for the first time and found it good in parts, but not brilliant.

Betty Grable plays a secretary and is a singer as well. She says she's engaged to every service man she has signed her photo for. She does fall in love with a man who's in the Navy and after several misunderstandings, she becomes engaged to him.

Despite being made during the Second World War, Pin Up Girl was shot in colour and it certainly is very colourful. There are some good songs and performances, although can be a little heavy going at times.

One viewing is probably enough for this movie. Not too bad though.

Rating: 2 and a half stars out of 5.

Splashy Technicolor musical with Betty Grable and Martha Raye has beautiful photography, Grable's incredible legs--although they're not featured as much as you'd think they'd be, considering they were what she was most famous for--and not a whole lot more. The musical numbers are for the most part uninspired, and the casting of unknown John Harvey as Grable's romantic interest was a big mistake. He's a bland, not particularly good actor who tries too hard to be the peppy "boy next door" type and has no chemistry at all with Grable. Dorothea Kent as Grable's sidekick is enjoyable but for some reason she vanishes about halfway through the film. Martha Raye, as always, gives it her best but the songs they stuck her with are, to be charitable, pedestrian and, in the case of "Yankee Doodle Hayride", downright stupid. Grable's "Don't Carry Tales Out of School" is boring--I have no idea why it's performed two different times in the film, as it doesn't get better with repetition. Raye's "Red Robins, Bobwhites and Bluebirds" is a juvenile time-waster and she looks almost embarrassed performing it--the lyrics are childish and the song makes virtually no sense. Just about the only number that has any spark at all is "Once Too Often", which Grable dances with the great Hermes Pan. It's not one of his or Grable's best, but compared to the rest of the numbers in this picture, it's a masterpiece. Joe E. Brown is an acquired taste, which I haven't acquired, but if you like him I guess this is as good a place to see him as any. The tap-dancing Condos Brothers are good, there's a campy but somewhat entertaining roller-skating number early in the film and a very bizarre and really out-of-place sequence at the end where Betty is a drill sergeant putting a female drill team through a series of complicated marching routines--it's almost surreal to watch her carrying a sword and shouting "Dress that line, there!" and "Hup, hip, hoop, harch!"--but even that dose of wartime weirdness doesn't do much for the picture. Overall it's a lower-rank, by-the-numbers effort from people who've done far better. Worth a look maybe just so you can say you've seen it, but other than that, there's not much reason to spend any time on it.