The Betty Hutton Story- Page 2

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 3/1/06 at 1:49am

She was a terrific hoofer. The one film she did with Fred Astaire (Let's Dance) is one of her films I have never seen, but at the top of my wish list.

[justme2]

Posted: 3/1/06 at 1:50am

that's pathetically sad, suleengay...but, unfortunately, not surprising. I'd have to say I actually enjoy what little dramatic work she did better than most of her musical roles.

Miracle of Morgan's creek is probably my favorite performance of hers. I still love how they got the story with the pregnancy past the censors.

Did anyone here see her in "Incendiary Blonde"? As Tex Guinan? I liked her in that.


EDIT:: my "pathetically sad..." comment was in response to your story of the True Hollywood people not knowing who she was, suleen, not your latter post about Let's Dance.

Updated On: 3/1/06 at 01:50 AM

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 3/1/06 at 1:51am

In my letter to her, I particularly praised her work in Miracle at Morgan's Creek.

Just, I didn't see the interview and was very bummed to find out that I missed it. (I thought it was actually a few years older than you mentioned though.)

Anyway, they make movies about people with way less-interesting lives than Betty. Hers isn't the most horrific--especially by Hollywood standards--that's true, but it has potential.

Now, Jean Arthur--who is one of my absolute favorite actresses--would be a difficult story to film because she was such a recluse. Betty is so "in your face."

When you think about it, "everybody" has a story. In the "right hands," just about anyone's story could be translated to film. But in the "wrong hands," even a fascinating life can seem like a big yawn!

Posted: 3/1/06 at 1:54am

she's perfect in that film sue. I hate to threadjack but just a little. I just saw an episode of Laverne & Shirley and Betty Garrett did a little dance routine with "Carmine" and she was so good!(another great hoofer)

edit: Carmine was played by Eddie Mekka Updated On: 3/1/06 at 01:54 AM

[justme2]

Posted: 3/1/06 at 1:58am

yeah, another one of the great "best friend" character actresses that has never really been given her due. Love Betty Garrett.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 3/1/06 at 2:00am

All those Betty's were great. Hutton, Garrett...Paige!

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 3/1/06 at 2:00am

Just--

Yes, I saw Incendiary Blonde! I watched it with my mom when I was a kid. I remember, I kept asking her "How do you say that word again?" It struck me, even as a child, as a rather bad word to use in movie title. I mean, how hard is that to say????

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 3/1/06 at 2:01am

Yet so perfect, too!

Posted: 3/1/06 at 2:02am

You know , Betty Garrett was very affected by HUAC and the whole blacklisting. I had no idea.

Larry Parks was her husband.

Larry Parks Updated On: 3/1/06 at 02:02 AM

[justme2]

Posted: 3/1/06 at 2:06am

"Incendiary"..truly a great word! So glad someone else knows that movie!

Yeah for Bettys everywhere! Rubble...Boop...White...

Posted: 3/1/06 at 2:10am

Grable

[justme2]

Posted: 3/1/06 at 2:11am

Buckley

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 3/1/06 at 2:11am

Miss Hutton is not kindly depicted in Howard Keel's autobiography. Has anyone read it? I wish I had never picked it up. I went from loving him in his movies to thinking of him as an egotistical, sexist, crude, disrespectful, right-wing jerk. (I could have forgiven his Republican Party affiliation if he hadn't been all of those other things.)

I couldn't even get through the book. It's awful. And the editor should be forced to wear a blindfold and a straight jacket for the rest of her life so she can't read or write ever again. Keep her away from words!

[justme2]

Posted: 3/1/06 at 2:14am

Om my goodness, that Private Screening Interview on TCM was from 2000!! Six years ago!

I DID read that Keel biography and I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that ended up disgusted with his attitudes. I, too lost a lot of respect for the man. Not for his screen work, but for his personality. SEXIST!!!

[justme2]

Posted: 3/1/06 at 2:17am

Betty Hutton was "America's Number One Jitterbug" in the late 1930s.

Just a bit of info I found.

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 3/1/06 at 2:22am

Betty Rubble...wow, you are good, Just! (Loved Bea Benadaret too.)

Yeah, I thought that Betty Hutton interview was older. I would love to see it.

I guess I'll be able to tolerate some of Howard Keel's movies--being that in most of them he plays a sexist jerk! I really didn't need to hear about all the women he bedded or almost bedded or could have bedded or tried to have bedded (I wonder how many tenses of "to bed" I can use in one sentence.) I forgot "would have bedded." Thank god he's dead or I'd have to include the future perfect!

Updated On: 3/1/06 at 02:22 AM

[justme2]

Posted: 3/1/06 at 2:24am

LOL!! You are too funny! I hate to sign off...but alas, I must go to work in the am.

I am going to find and resurrect this thread tomorrow. It's too good to disappear!

I am off......"to bed". But I won't be "bedding".

[justme2]

Posted: 3/1/06 at 12:36pm

resurrecting...as promised.

[ShineOn]

Posted: 3/1/06 at 12:57pm

Have you ever heard her rendition of "Arthur Murray Taught Me Dancing in a Hurry"... she was a crazy lady. Not an exceptional singer or actress, but her interesting personality was contageous.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/1/06 at 2:48pm

She said "murder!" she said!

And Arthur Murray taught her dancing in a hurry!

Updated On: 3/1/06 at 02:48 PM

[justme2]

Posted: 3/1/06 at 3:10pm

"...she performed in several short musical movies, such as One For the Book with Hal Sherman, Three Kings and a Queen, and Public Jitterbug #1 with Chaz Chase, Hal LeRoy and Emerson's Sextette."


Which one of these is the one where she is shouting "murder" and jumping around the set? Anyone know?

[MasterLcZ]

Posted: 3/1/06 at 7:15pm

What a coincidence - I was just at a screening of Vitaphone shorts this afternoon and the last one (not mentioned in the program) was ONE FOR THE BOOK, where Betty plays Cinderella. I had never seen it before. It takes place in a giant library with characters from various literary characters - Huckleberry Finn, Ben-Hur, Egar Allen Poe, Rip Van Winkle and Blackbeard the Pirate all pop out of books. When a new book comes in the library called "Minstrel Days" an entire minstrel troupe comes out of the binding - and 'blacks up' in a giant open inkwell. Meanwhile , Betty gets captured by a ghoul and gets pulled into a 'haunted house' set where she sings that "Ole Man Mose" (whom she sung about in an earlier Vitaphone short with the Vincent Lopez Orchestra) wasn't dead after all "Just because he was stiff, he wasn't dead!" (how this lyric got by the Hayes office is a mystery!). Then Betty is persuaded to join the minstrel group and proceeds to tell them that they need to ditch the old songs and get hep to the jive - and Betty does a wild, loose-limbed psychotic jitterbug dance.

Betty sang "Murder He Says" in the Technicolor HAPPY GO LUCKY, where she was co-starred with Dick Powell, Eddie Bracken, Rudy Valee, and Mary Martin.

Poor Mary. No wonder she was let go by Paramount....

[justme2]

Posted: 3/1/06 at 7:47pm

Thanks for the info MasterLcZ!! Now I know which Hutton video to stay away from. What a wonderful chance you had at getting to screen Vitaphone shorts!

Some of them are true gems.

[MasterLcZ]

Posted: 3/1/06 at 9:21pm

The shorts are being screened - FREE - at the Donnell Library every Wendesday!

Wednesday, March 8, 2006, 2:30 p.m.
Harry Wayman's Debutantes (192
Blossom Seeley & Benny Fields (1926)
Jack Osterman in Talking It Over (1929)
Jones & Hare in The Happiness Boys (1926)
Trixie Fraganza in My Bag O' Trix (1929)
William Demarest in The Night Court (1927)
Joe Frisco in The Happy Hottentots (1930)
Locust Sisters (1929)
Smith & Dale in Real Estators (1930)
Norman Thomas Quintette (1929)

Wednesday, March 15, 2006, 2:30 p.m.
Horace Heidt's Californians (1929)
Van & Schenck (1927)
Josephine Harmon in Harmonizing (1930)
Sil Violinsky (1927)
Brennan & Butler (1929)
Bernardo DePace (1927)
Stoll Flynn & Co. (192
Willie & Eugene Howard in I'm Telling You (1930)
Harry Rose/Metrotone Revue #1 (1929)
The Ingenues (192

Wednesday, March 22, 2006, 2:30 p.m.
Green's Faydettes (192
Police Quartette (1927)
Kraft & Lamont in Rarin' To Go (1929)
Grace Johnson & Indiana Five (192
Tess Gardella in Vitaphone Troupers (1935)
The Nicholas Brothers in All Colored Vaudeville (1935)
Mayer & Evans in When East Meets West (192
Eddie Cantor in Getting a Ticket (1929)
Frances White (192
Ming & Toy in Vitaphone Internationals (1936)

Wednesday, March 29, 2006, 2:30 p.m.
Tal Henry's North Carolinians (1929)
Herman Timberg in I Came First (1929)
Jack White & His Montrealers (1929)
Molly Picon in Vitaphone Hippodrome (1936)
Hawaiian Nights (1927)
Sinclair & Lamarr (1929)
Smith & Dale in Vitaphone Diversions (1937)
Frances Williams & the Yacht Club Boys (1929)
Eddie Cantor in Insurance (1930)
Jack Pepper Movietone Review (1929)

(So funny that an eight comes out as )




Vitaphone Shorts (scroll down)

Updated On: 3/1/06 at 09:21 PM

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 3/2/06 at 12:03am

I can't believe it, Master! (Wow. I just had a Barabra Eden moment.)

I actually SAW that short you described in great detail...about a month ago on television. I forgot all about it. Boy, was I stunned.

Betty was SO young in that...and very understated for Betty.

My jaw literally dropped open when the minstrel show started. I don't know what it was on...TCM or something.

Thanks for reminding me. It's so cool to be able to share that bizarre experience with someone else.