Colorful, predictably bombastic vehicle for Betty Hutton, here playing real-life silent serial starlet Pearl White, who was the toast of matinée audiences at the time of the Saturday afternoon cliffhanger. White is a put-upon seamstress who joins a traveling theatrical troupe in the 1900s, barely learning her craft before walking into job as a moving pictures actress/stuntwoman. Frank Loesser's song score isn't very good, despite an Oscar nomination for "I Wish I Didn't Love You So" (the best of the lot), and Hutton isn't exactly a songbird. However, the depictions of silent-era slapstick filmmaking are well-done, and the stop-and-start romance between White and leading man Michael Farrington (John Lund) isn't too sticky. Hutton is a formidable presence on-screen; she takes no prisoners, it's true, yet she exudes total commitment to what she's doing. Racing around at full throttle, she doesn't quite create a character in Pearl White but instead gives us another dimension of Betty Hutton. Some big laughs, particularly in the film's first-half. **1/2 from ****
Review of The Perils of Pauline
