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Call Me Mister

Screening on Film
Directed by Lloyd Bacon.
With Betty Grable, Dan Dailey, Danny Thomas.
US, 1951, 35mm, color, 96 min.
Print source: 20th Century Fox

Reunited with Warner Bros. collaborator Lloyd Bacon and Betty Grable, an uncredited showgirl in three of his 30s movies, Berkeley adds some visual verve to the dance numbers in this highly altered rendering of a successful Broadway musical. After a cheery, glossed-over depiction of the Japanese surrender and post-war camaraderie—including an odd, offhand musical number with Grable as a geisha—the film drowns its conscience in a comic Technicolor-wash focused less on the war and Japan than on the less weighty aspects of romance, show business and military protocol. Grable’s sunshiney Kay—part of the Civilian Actress Technicians Service, or C.A.T.S.—attempts to put on a lavish stage show for the remaining troops while avoiding her estranged, philandering husband, who happens to be in the lead. Though key Berkeley set pieces, such as revolving, elevating floors and breakaway sets, do add drama, the spectacle is pared down to a few bodies and carefully blocked light and color. Effervescent tap-dancing is the frosting on the cake here, and an uncredited performance by Bobby Short singing “Going Home Train” injects a little soul into all the sugar. 

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