Meet Me After the Show

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.

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 ****

This is a delightful Grable flick with great music and fine production numbers. But whomever decided Carey would be the perfect husband for her deserves the Golden Raspberry.

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.

From the racetrack to the Broadway stage Meet Me After The Show is a remake of the 1940 screwball comedy He Married His Wife. The original film was pleasant, but nothing to write home about. This one has the addition Betty Grable and some song and dance which is a plus though the songs are most forgettable.

Grable has been married and divorced to producer MacDonald Carey who discovered her and made her a star and his wife in that order. But the two couldn't live with each other or apparently without each other.

Carey is slow on the alimony and Betty fakes some amnesia and loses 7 years back to when she was working nightclubs before Carey discovered her. She's also got Rory Calhoun making a big play for her as well.

At one point Carey sings a song. Like Tyrone Power in Second Fiddle he was not a good singer. Whose idea at 20th Century Fox was that?

Meet Me After The Show is a pleasant enough Betty Grable musical comedy.