There's No Business Like Show Business

There's No Business Like Show Business
December 16, 1954
Fox
Musical, Historical
DVD
C-

SEE Marilyn Monroe in very revealing costumes that somehow got past the censors!
SEE Ethel Merman and Mitzi Gaynor in costumes that are remarkably unflattering!
HEAR Ethel belt out most of her lines!
HEAR no less than nine renditions of "Alexander's Ragtime Band," seven of them back to back!
SEE AND HEAR a mother-daughter salute to tattoos!
SCRATCH YOUR HEAD as you try to figure out who Dan Dailey is and how he got the lead!
FEEL Ethel and Dan's pain as their son played by Johnnie Ray comes out to them...as a priest!
YOUR MIND WILL REEL as
-Marilyn plays at least four different takes on one character, none of them convincing!!
-Donald O'Connor courts Marilyn with breadsticks!!
-Donald sings about men chasing women until the women catch them, only to be himself pursued by female Greek statues come to life!!
-Mitzi's marriage and pregnancy are treated like minor events!!
-Decades pass and the '30s and '50s melt into one, so that musical styles, phones, and women's slacks are amazingly anachronistic!!

Yes, My Friends, there is indeed no business like show business!!!

Thomas Martin played a waiter in All About Eve as well.  James Conaty was in AAE, too.  Fred Aldrich was in Sunset Blvd.  Charlotte Austin was in Marilyn's Monkey Business.  Kenner G. Kemp and Tommy Walker appeared in Singin' in the Rain.  Aladdin, George Chakiris, Stanley Hall, and Ron Nyman were in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.  Colin Kenny and Matt Mattox were in both The Band Wagon and Gentlemen Prefer.

Sandra Spence would be Pa's secretary in Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki.  Lee Patrick would play Mrs. Upson in Auntie Mame.  Hal Taggart would be in Mary Poppins.