The Stork Club

Betty Hutton works overtime at being indefatigable playing a hat-check girl/band singer who saves a bum's life, not knowing he's really a multimillionaire; he becomes her secret benefactor, much to the dismay of her jealous orchestra-leader boyfriend. Overwritten comedy from B.G. DeSylva and John McGowan is mercilessly talky and comically complicated, with bosses, lovers, husbands and wives all trying to fool one another into happiness. Hutton is remarkable, however; she's terribly aware of the camera and keeps playing to the collective funny bone, yet she radiates chummy charm and her musical numbers are memorably spirited. The excellent supporting cast includes Barry Fitzgerald, Robert Benchley, Don DeFore, and the wisecracking Iris Adrian, a stitch as Hutton's gal-pal. **1/2 from ****

About 20 years after first watching this on a VHS tape, I rewatched The Stork Club just now on YouTube. In this one, Betty Hutton saves Barry Fitzgerald from drowning. She thinks he's poor but he's actually rich and decides to give her an account initially without her knowledge. This eventually creates complications, most of which are pretty funny...except when her former soldier/current bandleader boyfriend Don Defore confronts her about them. The dialogue between him and Betty are deadly most of the time. Her with Fitzgerald, however, are often highlights. Ms. Hutton is much more subdued this time-compared to many of her other films I've seen-even during her performance of "In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree"-at least after Barry initially criticizes her jive version-to good effect. There's much more to the plot but I'll now say I highly recommend The Stork Club if you're a die-hard Betty Hutton fan like I am!

Betty Hutton really puts her heart and soul into this film. Although she may come across as bonkers in a lot of her films, she is definitely a talented actress with a lot of energy and spirit. Here she takes pity on an old man by trying to get him a job. This is an endearing quality, and makes you connect with her character from the early stages. Eventually, she realises that this man is carrying a torch for a woman who left him. Although you may not necessarily connect with the man, you connect with the writing that has drawn the character. In other words, it is a good script which is sensitively played by Hutton. You see her eyes in conversation with her boyfriend whilst she is singing, and you can't help feeling for her on her journey through this film. Definitely one of her better performances with a good script to take you through the film.

I cannot believe how mean-spirited so many of the comments are on this delightful piece of froth. It is a Rom-Com, a fun way for a war-weary people to loosen up and forget about their troubles. Betty Hutton does yell. And how. Her sense of rhythm, quick gestures and dance moves are extremely well-honed, and she nails these songs with a precision and joie-de-vivre that is a lesson to anyone in show business. The story is implausible. Good! That's what makes it so fun and such good escapist value. Look at Rom-Coms today and they're not that much more plausible... The set design is fabulous, the gowns are gorgeous, the girls vivacious, and the band excellent. The songs aren't amongst the forty best tunes of the century, but they're memorable enough that I'm humming one of them right now. Can't say fairer than that.

So, this beautiful blonde saves a rich old man from drowning, see? But she doesn't realize he's rich, see? And she tries to get him a job at the Stork Club, where she works, see? And he decides to secretly make her rich for being so nice to him, see?

A totally predictable feel-good movie, worth watching if you like Betty Hutton and WWII vintage studio potboilers with fun stories and a couple of good musical numbers.