Meet Me After the Show

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.

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.

Alimony and amnesia are the movers of the lame plot that makes this film almost ridiculous. Almost, but Betty Grable saves the day. She shimmies and shakes and shows off her million-dollar legs delivering wisecracks that typify the times, frequently surrounded by a bevy of hunks. While the music is not particularly memorable, the dance sequences are full of fun. The battle of the sexes being the film's theme, "The Male Sex" is a clever switch on the male complaint that women are double-crossing two-timers. The final production number ("I Feel Like Dancing") teams Grable with the great Gwen Verdon; the first part of the number casts them as athletic ragamuffins and evolves into a ballet-like dream sequence showcasing Grable at her most glamorous. Favorite line, uttered by Grable as she suspected her husband of an affair with his show's sexy financial backer: "Why did you have to get a bankroll with a body by Fisher?"-a reference to a logo used on automobiles produced by General Motors. Runner up, when Grable's character has reverted to her old unsophisticated self: "Let's go back to the hotel and tie on a feed bag."

This 1951 film is another backstage musical, a typical format for Betty Grable. Unfortunately, this musical suffers from a mediocre score. Even though the composers were the well-known Jule Styne and Leo Robin, none of the songs in this film come anywhere close to the quality of their other compositions (e.g. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes).

In part of the first production number, Grable does a very good, skillful tap dance joined by two male dancers. This was the time when tap dancing was giving way to jazz as the predominant style of dance in film, brought on by Jack Cole and Bob Fosse. While Grable was certainly technically proficient enough for that style in the other production numbers, in my opinion, it just doesn't seem to suit her persona.

What is choreographer Jack Cole's production number, "No Talent Joe", all about? With a chorus of muscle men attired in classical Greek costumes and tan makeup suggesting statuary, and herself wearing a beachcomber outfit, Grable sings a Latin/Calypso song. What a mishmash!

I suggest this might have been a homo-erotic fantasy interjected by choreographer Cole. He did a similar thing when choreographing 1953's "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", with Jane Russell surrounded by gyrating nearly naked athletes.

Two other interesting points of trivia. The Miami film sequence is footage lifted directly from Grable's 1941 film, "Moon Over Miami". Also, take a good look at the set, props and the women's costumes in the last production number of the film. You will see very similar in 1953's "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" in the "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend" production number. This probably due to the fact that Charles Le Maire and Travilla did costumes for both films, while Cole did the choreography for both.

While most musicals are excusably weak in the plot department, the plot is this film is downright dumb. Viewing this film would be enjoyable only for the die-hard Betty Grable fan. It's been resurrected recently on the Fox Movie Channel. Record it and skip everything but the musical numbers.