The Farmer Takes a Wife

"The Farmer Takes a Wife" is a charming, forgettable piece of fluff of the "Boy meets girl; boy loses girl; boy gets girl back" school of film musical. Fox musicals were almost always rather forgettable, with their insipid songs and frequently bad singing. However, they were also bright and colorful, since Fox used Technicolor longer and more frequently than the "Tiffany" studio, MGM. "The Farmer Takes a Wife" is especially charming in costume, art and set decoration.

Betty Grable is, well, Betty Grable, and if you adore her (and I do), you're likely to adore "The Farmer Takes a Wife". Betty's ably supported by Dale Robertson, John Carroll, Eddie Foy, Jr. and, the always wonderful Thelma Ritter. I won't pretend it's a great movie, or even a good movie, but "The Farmer Takes a Wife" is a "Betty Grable" movie, and that's good enough for me. I give "The Farmer Takes a Wife" a "6".

It's easygoing, middle-of-the-road entertainment so no point taking it too serious or being critical. I happen to like Betty Grable films and this one is a lovely setting for her to shine in, a very photogenic lady.

Dale Robertson, as Daniel, is the farmer who finds work on the canal to pay his way so he can join a ladylove and settle down to farming in future, but plans don't always work out as intended. I feel it's a lesser role for Dale compared to other movies of his I've seen such as Golden Girl (1951) which was a very good role for him to star in.

Thelma Ritter too is a favorite of mine and here she plays the rich widow, Lucy Cashdollar, who plans on having a husband No. 6. She's beautifully dressed in all scenes, more so than I've ever seen her in other films, which of course fits her role here.

There's the usual barroom mêlées or free-for-all fights, songs sung by the lead characters, and romance where as they say, Love always finds a way. It's just charming entertainment meant for a pleasant Saturday afternoon, and is a video I like to have for cheering up when needed.

A career-killing movie for Betty Grable, who is wasted, along with everyone except Eddie Foy Jr. in this prettified musical version of the movie that made Henry Fonda a star. Dale Robertson plays the farmer, who is a moron, Thelma Ritter is wasted and some fake-looking scenery still leaves one mystified at how people can live in riverfront saloons and on farms and know nothing at all of the facts of life or the baser side of human nature -- it must be those perfectly maintained canal boats with red-striped awnings they travel in. The songs are also pretty poor, including an ode to Schenectady that did not make Rodgers and Hammerstein jealous.

While none of Gable's starring musicals are likely to make any top-100 lists, most of them have fairly good musical numbers and enough plot and comedy relief to get you from one standard to the next. This one doesn't.

This film is one of the Hollywood musicals that marked the end of a particular genre-the romantic, comical romp filled with solid songs sung well by stars like Judy Garland, Doris Day, and Alice Faye. Based on a Broadway play and a 1935 nonmusical film, this half-hearted attempt is more insipid than romantic or comical. Betty Grable, whose charms I have always found elusive, is miscast as a cook on a boat on the Erie Canal, with Dale Robertson (not a great musical talent) as the guy she falls for. Although they are written by the great Harold Arlen and Dorothy Fields, the songs are forgettable. The highlight of the film for me was watching an uncredited Gwen Verdon dance with Grable in the splashy tune "We're in Business."

Agreeable 20th Century-Fox musical, a remake of their 1935 Janet Gaynor-Henry Fonda comedy-romance, based on the novel and play "Rome Haul", is uncertainly directed, full of static staging, and embarrassed by at least one terrible dance number--but it does have Betty Grable, full of her usual sass and vigor (which this vehicle definitely needs). On the Erie Canal in 1850, a young lovely and her fiancé/business partner run a barge hauling supplies (she cooks, he drinks); she hires a horse-driver to pull the barge, a low-keyed farmer with a sweetheart in Chicago, but when her fiancé is thrown in jail for fighting with the incoming railroad folk, the girl goes into partnership with the handsome newcomer, sparking romance. Director Henry Levin doesn't seem to know anything about staging a musical number on the screen; though the mediocre songs by Harold Arlen and Dorothy Fields are clearly no help to him, Levin hasn't paced the narrative with the energy needed for a musical, and the introductions to each song are creaky with hesitation. "We're in Business", featuring Gwen Verdon (who pops in without an introduction), is the worst of the lot, while the reprise of "Today I Love Everybody" includes a brief vocal by Thelma Ritter that proves the actress can't do everything. Grable and quiet, polite Dale Robertson aren't an exciting match, but his gentle tone cools down her brashness. There's a streak of early feminism in Grable's character when she flatly refuses to become a farmer's wife (without her feelings on the matter even being considered!), which is then abandoned in the face of true love, however she and Robertson look good together. The color is gloppy, and the finale--where Levin apparently chose to move the material back to its stage roots--is perplexing, yet the movie is upbeat and pleasurable despite its faults. **1/2 from ****