Themes: Bohemian Life, Dancer's Life, Mothers and Daughters
Main Cast: Betty Grable, Robert Arthur, Dan Dailey, Veda Ann Borg, Mona Freeman, Connie Marshall, Vanessa Brown, Chick Chandler, Sara Allgood
Release Year: 1947
Country: US
Run Time: 107 minutes
Plot
A woman looks back at her childhood in show business in this musical comedy. At the turn of the century, Myrtle McKinley (Betty Grable) is working her way through business school and gets a job dancing at a San Francisco vaudeville house. She meets fellow hoofer Frank Burt (Dan Dailey), and they soon fall in love. Marriage follows, and Myrtle and Frank begin performing a song and dance act on the road. Myrtle leaves the act when she becomes pregnant with the first of two children, but when the kids are old enough to go out on tour, she and Frank work them into the act, and they learn to live out of a suitcase like their parents. Years later, Iris (Mona Freeman) and Mikie (Connie Marshall) are attending college when they learn that Mom and Dad have pulled their act out of mothballs -- and are booked to perform at a theatre near their campus. Mother Wore Tights won an Academy Award for Best Musical Score, and it was nominated for Best Song ("You Do") and Best Color Cinematography; the great Mexican ventriloquist Senor Wences appears as himself. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
While first rate screenplays are always desirable, some films -- especially musicals -- can be first rate with less than top drawer scripts, as is the case with Mother Wore Tights. Not that Mother's screenplay is bad, mind you; much of the dialogue is quite good, there's decent character development, and the structure is sound. But Mother's basic storyline is rather thin, and it's a situation that has been visited in one form or another many times before. Fortunately, this proves to be merely a minor distraction in Mother, which ends up a sparkly, bubbly entertainment. Chief credit goes to its cast, headed by the lovely Betty Grable and the amiable Dan Dailey. The team displays the same chemistry that they did in their other pairings, but somehow there's even more of it on display in Mother. As expected, they light up the screen during their musical numbers, but their dialogue scenes also have more "oomph." Certainly director Walter Lang deserves some credit for this, as well as for bringing all of the ingredients of the film together and mixing them up into this delightful soufflé. The score, some of which is original and some of which is pulled from hither and yon, is a mixed affair, but it all works in context, with each number coming across as just what was needed in context. Harry Jackson's yummy cinematography is also a major plus, and the sets and costumes are appropriately colorful. It all adds up to a piece of fluff -- but a thoroughly engaging one. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Mother Wore Tights is a 1947musical film starring Betty Grable and Dan Dailey as married vaudeville performers. This was Grable and Dailey's first film together, based on a book of the same name by Miriam Young. It was the highest grossing film of Grable's career, earning more than $4 million at the box office.
Alfred Newman won the Academy Award for Original Music Score. Josef Myrow (music) and Mack Gordon (lyrics) were nominated for Original Song ("You Do"), while Harry Jackson was nominated for Color Cinematography.
