mother wore tights

Cinema may combine the best aspects of art, literature and music...but it also has a healthy dose of vaudeville too. After all, putting on a show for those who can't afford (or appreciate) a night at the opera is what Hollywood was built around! So movies like Mother Wore Tights (1947) translate the vaudeville experience particularly well, rushing through various musical numbers while stringing together just enough narrative complications to fit the new playbill.

Narrated via flashback by Mikie, the youngest daughter in a traveling troupe of family performers, she tells the meet-cut story of Mother (Betty Grable) and Daddy (Dan Dailey), a successful dancing duo whose stage lives become hopelessly complicated after they have children. Iris, the eldest, begins to resent her upbringing and enrolls in a prestigious prep school. But when Mom and Dad book a show nearby, resent turns to embarrassment, and the family business becomes a skeleton she'd rather keep in the closet.

To be sure, there are some emotional pitfalls presented here. But Mother Wore Tights proves there's no family strife a good 'ol song and dance number can't cure. Grable's films have a good natured, wholesome quality that is almost cruel to criticize; no matter how thick the treacle pours out, she manages to make it appetizing. The Fox production has that hyper-real Technicolor glow that carries over to the rest of the cast, including the only big-screen performance by Senor Wences, whose hand puppet entertains the kids on a magical Christmas morning. Sure, it's an idealized post-war idyllic family fantasy...but letting in bleed into your own life for a couple hours is a kind of magic itself.

The business side of vaudeville takes center stage in Hello, Frisco, Hello (1943) where the ambitious Johnny Cornell (John Payne) steers his quartet to the top of San Francisco's Barbary Coast, introduced in the film by a wonderful single tracking shot that travels from one end of the colorful, rowdy, street to the other. Their top singer, Trudy (Alice Faye), becomes a sensation, but instead of seeing the romance in her eyes, Johnny only sees dollar signs and a chance to put himself atop the prestigious Nob Hill.

A remake of the edgier King of Burlesque from 1936, this was Alice Faye's much heralded return to the big screen after starting an off-screen family and it's scrubbed to a bright studio factory shine. Faye herself provides a unique variant on the Hollywood musical star with her smoky voice and half-lidded eyes. If you ever wondered what Lauren Bacall would look like belting out a tune, this is the closest you can get.

Johnny's rise and fall is precipitated by his obsession with an old money snob (played well by Lynn Bari) who knows his weaknesses. But a happy ending is never really in question. In fact, it offers up an encore of the film's most famous number, "You'll Never Know," which became an ode to all those lonely loved ones serving overseas. Hello, Frisco, Hello softens the evils-of -capitalism message inherent in the script with a kinder, gentler take on the entertainment industry viewed from the inside out.

Twilight Time's 3000-copy limited edition Blu-ray of Mother Wore Tights includes a rare radio adaptation while Hello, Frisco, Hello has an isolated music track, Alice Faye featurette, more radio programs and the original theatrical trailer.