Moon Over Miami
Director: Walter Lang
Year: 1941
Rating: 6.0
A frothy Technicolor musical from 20th Century
Fox starring Betty Grable and her million dollar legs. The studio discovered
they had a musical star in Grable with Down Argentine Way in 1941 after giving
her small parts for years. Now she was their go to for musicals with fellow
blonde Alice Faye cutting way back on her film output and then retiring in
1945. Technicolor really discovered Grable - she looks fabulous like a shiny
Christmas ornament in that format. Her skin glistens and her smile radiates.
The bright splashed on red lipstick looks like a declaration of desire. I
may be a virgin but I don't have to be. It doesn't do too badly for
her female co-star in this either, Carole Landis, who practically gleams
she is so bright. We should live in a Technicolor world. We would all look
so much better. The men in Grable's films never match up with her. Fox was
never able to sign a male musical star, so she gets the likes of Don Ameche,
Bob Cummings in this one and John Payne, George Montgomery and Victor Mature
in others. No one's idea of musical talent.
Kay (Grable) and her sister Barbara (Carole)
are waitresses at a hamburger joint who have to sing the Blue Plate Special
to their customers in some nowhereville town. With their aunt Susan (the
always entertaining Charlotte Greenwood) they get an inheritance from a far
off relative and jump for joy when it comes in at $50,000. Then in the fine
print the taxes, the lawyer fees, the executive fees and they are left with
a little over $4,000. Still, they have a plan. Get Kay married to a millionaire
(something Grable tried to do again in the 1953 How to Marry a Millionaire).
Where else to find a millionaire than in Miami, so they pack their bags,
buy a snazzy wardrobe for Kay and try to pass as a wealthy socialite with
Barbara posing as her secretary and Susan as a maid. They put out the
bait and quickly get two nibbles - Jeffrey (Cummings) a charming party going
scion from a wealthy family and Phil (Ameche) whose family owns all these
plants.
They both fall for her, chase after her,
compete for her and show her what a great place Miami was. This is as much
a tourist postcard of Florida with a few sights thrown in among the parties
and musical numbers. There is one amazing motorboat race in the Everglades
done by stuntman that will wake you up if you are dozing. A bunch of music
and a couple dancing numbers. Grable sings, Ameche sings, Greenwood sings,
Cummings sings. Jack Haley (the Tinman) shows up as a waiter and the romantic
foil for Charlotte and they have a duet. Complications arise of course. They
think she is rich and she isn't. She falls for one, her sister for another.
Landis was the revelation to me - simply adorable and vulnerable - and I
looked up to see what other films I had with her in them. A bunch. But fuck
me. Why did I have to read about her. Multiple husbands and suicide at 29.
Just did the same about a Korean actress I thought was great. Suicide at
28. What a shame. Both bummed me out. Just keep going. It gets better. We
are made that way.
A bauble but a lovely one to look at - seeing
this on the big screen back in 1941 when most films were still being shot
in black and white must have seemed immersive. The music back then probably
would have sounded better as well. Other than a song or two, none of them
felt like keepers.
