Mother Wore Tights

Moviecut—Mother Wore Tights

I wish movies were like this now. Everything about this movie is beautiful! The costumes are breath taking, the songs and choreography is amazing. I love how women back then always looked so beautiful and the men look like men!

It used to be said of Gerald Ford that he couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time. Here Veda Anne Borg - looking even more handsome than usual in Technicolor - demonstrates her ability simultaneously to chew gum and dance. Sadly when Betty Grable leaves the chorus Veda leaves the film.

Betty Grable and Dan Daily were an excellent team, and this was one of their best. The music, while old fashioned corn, is fantastic, and the storyline -- also corn-- is great musical material. A great family picture. Song standouts include a delightful TRA LA LA LA LA, and also a great tribute to KOKOMO, INDIANA. Granted, Betty was no Garland, and she never tried to be, and this picture utilized more of her than just her valuable legs and incandescent beauty. Dan Daily brought out the best in Betty Grqble, and their numbers are always a delight. For any Fox musical aficionado, this film is a necessity. Not a wrong note in the whole picture.

While BETTY GRABLE was never in the same league with Ginger Rogers or Rita Hayworth as a dancer, she does manage to keep up nicely with DAN DAILEY in this pleasant backstage musical of a vaudeville couple who become a dance team, marry and raise a family. The voice-over narration is by none other than ANNE BAXTER, although MONA FREEMAN and CONNIE MARSHALL play the couple's children. Grable is still at the height of her box-office popularity here, charming in the song-and-dance routines that show off her shapely figure and modest talents as a dancer, while Dailey is at his breezy best as her highly confident partner. By today's standards, it's no doubt going to find some who find it too schmaltzy and corny but fans of the escapist movies of the '40s will no doubt succumb to its charms. Alfred Newman's musical score won a Best Musical Score Oscar and the film had two nominations for Color Cinematography and the song "You Do". The musical numbers are light and entertaining, my personal favorite being the "Kokomo, Indiana" song-and-dance, although the Oscar winning ballad is nice enough. But there's nothing special here. Grable fans might be disappointed that the musical numbers aren't more lavish (or as garish as they usually are in a Grable film), but the story has some warm appeal that makes up for the neglected gaudier aspects. Trivia note: An actor named STEPHEN DUNNE (as Roy), bears a remarkable resemblance to GEORGE MONTGOMERY. Could be his twin brother!!

This is by far the most disappointing of all Betty Grable musicals I have seen. Shot in Fox's sumptuous Technicolor, "Mother Wore Tights" is not a bad viewing but it could have been better. It opens with Grable and her husband living in quiet senility. Then her voice-over enters the soundtrack and starts recalling the past, detailing her life and marriage with a fellow vaudevillean (Dan Dailey). The film proceeds in a glacial, disconcerting pace, and the songs are mainly excruciating and dull, the dance numbers & vaudeville acts overwrought. The only thing that kept me watching "Mother Wore Tights" was the gorgeous Technicolor.

If you watch this dull ,storyless,feeble effort then you will be asleep like the opening shot of the leads well before the end.It goes at a snails pace for 107 minutes.

This film deserves 0 stars or even minus stars. Bad acting and awful music combine to give even the least discerning viewer a headache. The kind of tosh churned out by Hollywood when all the talent had gone somewhere else.

This is a good, sentimental, family film of 1947. It's a rather idealized viewpoint of how vaudeville was, with none of the downsides that we often see in such films. It's all sweetness. The production standards here were very high, and the color is luscious. Somehow, after all these years of watching old movies, I had never seen one with Betty Grable. This is the second I've seen recently, and I have to admit that I don't get it. She's a satisfactory actress, satisfactory dancer, and satisfactory singer. Frankly, Dan Dailey is more a natural here. Grable is "fine". Dailey is smooth. There are nice performances by the supporting cast. This is almost too sweet to hold an audience today, but this film was very popular upon its theatrical release. It's worth a watch, but few will probably want it on their DVD shelf.

A little "Meet Me in St. Louis," a little "I Remember Mama," and a little bit of razzmatazz are rolled up into one big family saga showcasing the considerable comedic and dancing talents of Betty Grable and Dan Daily as married hoofers who make it to the big time while trying to raise two girls to be refined young ladies. This film was very popular in its day probably because it combines nostalgia for the vaudeville stage with post-World War II sentimentality. It works for me, and this seldom screened gem uses the musical numbers to advance the story seamlessly. The Christmas scenes alone make this a great family film, and ventriloquist Señor Wences steals the show with his hand puppet-literally made by applying lipstick and a wig to his hand. The mixture of pure 1940s tunes like "Kokomo, Indiana" with old familiar songs like "Silent Night" is what must have made this movie such a hit. Ignore the mocking of various ethnic accents and try to ignore the fact that Mona Freeman as the eldest daughter is clearly dubbed by Imogene Lynn.