User Reviews

Betty Grable, as Stormy, and Sheree North, as Curly(the 2 stoogeses?), are hoochi coochi dancers at a burlesque dive. One day, after they finish their act, Cherry Blossom Wang(Noel Toy) goes on stage, but is shot dead by a bald headed man. Everyone exits in a panic, and the shooter escapes. Bettie and Sheree put on long coats, to hide their burlesque outfit and escape out a window, as they are afraid the man wants to shoot them too. They think they can identify the killer, and don't want to get mixed up in a police investigation and trial. So, they hop on a bus, to an unknown destination, as far as their money will take them, which happens to be College City, home of Bristol College. They get off in the rain, not knowing where they should go. Betty sees a man in the window and decides to investigate, telling Sheree to wait outside(in the rain!) Betty peeks in the first door and sees a man(Tommy Noonan, as Eddie Jones), trying to hypnotize another. She moves on to the next door, and quietly goes in to greet a surprised man(Bob Cummings as Wedge), as this is a men's dormitory, who explains that he has been a student here for 17 years, as his grandfather willed money for his college education, without specifying how long it might be. Sheree goes in, and also peeks in the hypnotist's room. Somehow(?), she becomes hypnotized, rather than the man, and stays there. Jones, puts on a record by Salome, and Sheree begins to dance. From now on, while hypnotized, whenever, she hears Salome, or something close to it, mentioned, she will go into a dance. One time, someone mentioned that they wished they had a salami, and she went into a dance. Later, she and Betty dressed in cap gown(where did they get these?), joined others during the graduation ceremony. The guest speaker talked about the 2nd Greek-Persians war. We are about to see the most interesting segment of the film, when the speaker mentioned the naval battle near the island of Salamas. Sheree thought she heard Salome, takes off her cap and gown, to reveal her burlesque costume, and begins some dance and calisthenics movements across the stage. Eventually, she sweeps the diplomas off the table, gets on the table, and dances. The band plays "Shake, Rattle and Roll", which was a recent hit by Bill Haley and his Comets, announcing the coming Rock and Roll age.. Some of the students really graduating get up and circle around her on the table. Then, several gunshots are heard, aimed in the direction of Sheree, but none hitting anyone. Betty sees the same baldheaded man in the audience manage to get away in the pandemonium(Now, why would this man travel all the way to see this graduation, unless he got off the same bus as a lark, like the girls). The girls again fear for their life, and don't want to get involved in the police investigation., so hide out........Meanwhile, Dean Tweed(Charles Colburn) is informed that a Mr. B.J. Marshall(the charismatic Fred Clark) is arriving to see his son, Toby(Carson Bean), graduate. Now, B.J. is quite a wealthy man, and Tweed is hoping to get an endowment of around $1 million out of him. The only problem is that Toby was expelled a month ago, for heading a panty raid(Such raids were common in the '50s and '60s). Nonetheless, Tweed tells B.J. what a great son he has. Now, where to find him? Despite being expelled, he's been hanging around the dorm where Betty and Sherry visited. The police arrest B.J. as a suspect for the murder, since he has a bald head! Sheree's father, who also showed up, is arrested later, for the same reason(Now, why would he show up, since Sheree isn't a valid graduating senior??). Eventually, things get worked out......In her last Hollywood film, Betty didn't get to do a whole lot. The attention was more focused on Sheree, who substituted for the hoped for Marylin Monroe. Aside from her dance, and occasional kisses from some of the men, Sheree says very little because of her zombie -like condition. Nonetheless, I thought she did well. Colburn is adequate in his role as the Dean. Fred Clark was great as B.J.. Bob Cummings was adequate as the perpetual student. The screenplay has too many silly contrived elements to give the film a high mark. Granted, these often are required to further the interest of the screenplay. See it at YouTube. However, ,the print is somewhat fuzzy.

Copyright 1955 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening at the Roxy: 22 July 1955. U.S. release: July 1955. U.K. release: September 1955. Australian release: 8 December 1955. 8,046 feet. 89 minutes.

SYNOPSIS: Two burlesque dancers, fleeing from a murderer, hole up in a co-ed college.

NOTES: Fox's 34th CinemaScope picture. Although neither she nor anyone else realized it at the time, this was Betty Grable's last movie. She then went on the stage, into nightclub acts and appeared on a number of TV shows. Film debut of Orson Bean — but not of Sheree North who had made three other movies ("Excuse My Dust", "Here Come the Girls" and "Living It Up") prior to this one. Third film version of "She Loves Me Not". Paramount turned the play into a Bing Crosby vehicle in 1934, with Miriam Hopkins and Kitty Carlisle; then into an Allan Jones musical in 1942 with Ann Miller and Judy Canova, re-titled "True to the Army". The original stage play opened on Broadway at the 46th Street Theatre on 20 November 1933 and ran 367 performances. Howard Lindsay directed Burgess Meredith, John Beal (who had two songs) and Polly Walters.

COMMENT: Very much a filmed stage play — two filmed stage plays at that — with lots more dialogue than even the CinemaScope screen can comfortably handle. Johnson doesn't help. Not only is his direction typically dull and snail-paced, but he lines up his players so carefully on their marks, articulating their every syllable so slowly, thus ensuring that every word of his deathless dialogue be not only clearly heard but meditated upon and digested by even the least nimble-witted audience. Also on the debit side, the color is a bit murky, yet it is occasionally revealing enough to zero in on unflattering layers of facial make-up.

But all in all, the movie, despite its many shortcomings, is still fairly entertaining. Our praises for this turnaround must go almost entirely to the efforts of a super-talented cast. True, Betty Grable, despite top billing, is rather ill-served and has little to do. She does have a short introductory dance number, but leaves the climactic "Shake, Rattle and Roll" entirely to newcomer Sheree North (whom Fox's publicity machine had been assiduously building up as a dumb blonde replacement for Marilyn Monroe). She's absolutely great as the zombied Curly Flagg.

Charles Coburn is also an absolute delight — especially in his scenes with Sheree North and Fred Clark. Most agreeable too are Tommy Noonan, Orson Bean (in his cellar full of cats — a really delightful running gag), Alice Pearce, and Charlotte Austin (daughter of singing star, Gene Austin), who had previously appeared in "The Farmer Takes a Wife", "Gorilla at Large", "Desiree" and "Daddy Long Legs". She is very nice indeed as Coburn's secretary.