Call Me Mister (1951) Movie Review Movie Review

Call Me Mister (1951)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Dale Robertson, Betty Grable and Dan Dailey in Call Me Mister (1951)

Mrs. in the Middle

Kay Hudson (Betty Grable - How to Marry a Millionaire) is part of the entertainment corps, travelling around entertaining the troops in Japan at the end of WWII. At the same time she is trying to avoid Sgt. Shep Dooley (Dan Dailey - A Ticket to Tomahawk), a scoundrel and a charmer who happens to be her husband, well until the divorce comes through. Having headed to Kyoto with her friend, Billie (Benay Venuta), to put on a show for the troops stationed there she finds herself dealing with handsome Capt. Johnny Comstock (Dale Robertson - The Cariboo Trail) and also Pfc. Stanley Poppopolis (Danny Thomas). But she also finds herself dealing with Shep as he has followed her there having gone AWOL with forged papers so that he can try to win her back.

Getting straight to the point I will say that "Call Me Mister" is a fun little musical which entertains mostly because of the appeal of Betty Grable. But this isn't a great musical and as such whilst it has the full array of elements from song & dance to romance & humour there isn't anything to make "Call Me Mister" really memorable. And most of that comes down to the basic nature of the story as this revolves around Kay in between her rogue-ish husband Shep trying to win her back and Johnny trying to charm her by being tall, dark and handsome. That is it and the whole back drop of this coming at the end of WWII and being set in Japan adds nothing, well other than some scenes which would be pushing on being politically incorrect now.

But as I said "Call Me Mister" is a musical which really works because of Betty Grable and she really gives it her all from being chipper to sexy and throwing herself in to the musical numbers. And in fairness the rest of the cast is good with Dan Dailey delivering the song & dance numbers with Betty Grable whilst Danny Thomas gives us that classic "life treats him bad" pfc humour. But with out the enthusiasm of Betty Grable "Call Me Mister" would have ended up feeling like it was just going through the motions.

What this all boils down to is that for fans of Betty Grable "Call Me Mister" will be a lot of fun. But otherwise this is just an entertaining 1950's musical which sadly lacks anything to make it really memorable.


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