Wed 25 Jun 2025
An Archived Movie Review: PIN-UP GIRL (1944).
Posted by Steve under Films: Comedy/Musicals , Reviews[12] Comments
PIN-UP GIRL. 20th Century Fox, 1944. Betty Grable, John Harvey, Martha Raye, Joe E. Brown, Eugene Pallette, Dave Willock. Director: Bruce Humberstone.
A secretary poses as Broadway star during wartime to win the love of a sailor. Dave Willock plays the sailor’s buddy, and as a team Martha Raye and Joe E. Brown display a bit of denture work.
Lots of large-scale production numbers add to the proceedings, but not much to the story, which is low-scale. Just in passing, I wonder if Betty Grable would be a glamour girl today. I’m not trying to be awkward. I just think standards have changed.
— Reprinted from Movie.File.1, March 1988.
June 25th, 2025 at 9:30 pm
Steve, my off-the-top thought. People who were stars will always manage to be so, and people who are not, whatever they look like, will never hit the jackpot. Example. Gable and Grant are always what they became, the most important leads in pictures, but right behind them is Charles Laughton.
June 25th, 2025 at 11:13 pm
I am not sure why I asked the question (in terms of Betty Grable). It was quite a while ago, and as asked, I’m still not able to answer it. I do not intend to quibble with your comment, though, Barry, except to point out (nervously) that all three of your examples are men.
June 25th, 2025 at 10:46 pm
Follow up:
The most interesting cast member for me is John Harvey, a guy who did not make stardom in any medium but worked steadily in the business.
June 25th, 2025 at 11:21 pm
When I was typing up this old review to post online earlier today (or now yesterday), I realized that I could not then place a face to go with the name. John Harvey was obviously a star, even if only briefly, but as a person, as you say, he had a life well lived in show business.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harvey_(American_actor)
June 25th, 2025 at 11:21 pm
Your observation is correct, and with the exception of Marilyn Monroe, no other lady ranks with those men or several others. Not Myrna Loy, Irene Dunne, Claudette Colbert, Barbara Stanwyck…
June 25th, 2025 at 11:28 pm
One night at home, we were watching The Tall Men, and about three-quarters of the way through, my wife observed, ‘Cary Grant is the best actor (she meant whoever lived), but Clark Gable is apart.That speaks for itself.
June 27th, 2025 at 3:59 am
To (finally!) address your question, Steve, I think Grable was a media event, one of those happy confluences of time and culture that produces an intense snowstorm of attention that looks almost like Stardom: Think Farrah Fawcett and Bo Derek
June 27th, 2025 at 11:57 am
You sure have a way with words, Dan, and I agree with all of them, especially the word “happy,” which should be emphasized.
Good examples, too.
June 29th, 2025 at 11:13 am
The Wikipedia article on Betty Grable shows the staggering financial success of her films, from 1940 to 1955. She was an amazing box office draw.
June 29th, 2025 at 9:50 pm
Michael Grost has it nailed. perfectly.
July 2nd, 2025 at 10:01 pm
Grable was gorgeous and talented, but also the beneficiary of the Studio system carefully cultivating and crafting a stars career so that she lasted farther into the Fifties than many glamour girls still holding her own as late as HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE with the younger Bacall and Monroe.
She never tried to become a great dramatic actress or pretended to it, but within the oveure that made her a star she was hard to beat.
October 2nd, 2025 at 9:23 pm
[…] movie star in this creaky vehicle than she did seven years earlier, in Pin-Up Girl [reviewed here]. Her strength was in musical comedy, and she made the most of […]