Search - Pin-Up Girl on DVD

MPAA Rating: NR Content Advisory: Suitable for Children Movie Release: 1944 DVD Release: 02/21/2006 Format: DVD - Color - Closed Captioned Audio Tracks: English Subtitles: English, Spanish SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 23 mins Studio: 20th Century Fox Members Wishing: 4 Genres: Comedy, Musical, Musical Comedy

Despite the film's title, Pin-Up Girl offers surprisingly few glimpses of the famed Betty Grable "gams." This lively Technicolor musical casts Gable as Lorrie Jones, secretary at a USO canteen frequented by handsome servicemen. Falling in love with war hero Tommy Dooley (John Harvey), Lorrie contrives to be near him wherever he goes by posing as a world-famous Broadway star. As a result, she is hired as a USO entertainer -- and becomes a star for real. Despite considerable competition from such veteran funsters as Joe E. Brown and Martha Raye, the film's comic honors are stolen by Dorothea Kent, cast as Lorrie's bespectacled, man-hungry best pal. Choreographed by Hermes Pan, the dance numbers in Pin-Up Girl are among Betty Grable's best, especially "I'll be Marching to a Love Song" -- portions of which later showed up in the patriotic two-reeler The All-Star Bond Rally. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Betty Grable - Lorry Jones
John Harvey - Tommy Dooley
Martha Raye - Marian
Joe E. Brown - Eddie
Eugene Pallette - Barney Briggs

Fox Video has tried to do right by H. Bruce Humberstone's Pin-Up Girl (1944), starring Betty Grable, released as part of its "Marquee Musicals" series, and as far as the film-to-video transfer goes they've succeeded admirably on this DVD. Pin-Up Girl was available on laserdisc at the end of the 1980s, in a transfer that featured over-saturated, bleeding reds throughout, among other problems -- fortunately, the DVD has none of those flaws and is a pleasure to look at, and that goes double for the production numbers. The movie has been appended with a deleted musical number, "This Is It," which isn't nearly as good as the song that was used, and is also kitted out with a bonus commentary track by critic Richard Schickel. The latter feature may be the only weak link in the package. Schickel is too cerebral by more than half in discussing the movie, and also neglects discussion of some beautiful musical numbers (choreographed by Hermes Pan) in favor of a leisurely and loose-fitting discussion that delves into plot and some social analysis (most of which isn't much more than explaining the obvious) along with film history. He's great discussing the career of the director, aspects of Grable's career, or the curious evolution of the movie, but otherwise he quickly becomes a lot more boring than anything in the movie, eventually trying to discuss plot elements that he admits he doesn't understand; it's as though he has nothing to say but keeps talking, although at least he stays on point in terms of attempting to stick with what's on the screen. Some recent commentaries on wartime musicals, such as that on Warner's Cabin in the Sky, are worse, but this one also rambles away from elements that are well worth discussing, and he shows a highly myopic outlook on Martha Raye's career, describing her as a "one-picture immortal" based on her work in Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux. That may be her classiest movie, but her her most widely seen and enduring work, in movies, at least, was probably as the twin sisters in the Abbott & Costello feature Keep 'Em Flying, which has been reshown for decades.

The other major bonus feature is a pair of trailers from other musicals in this DVD release cycle, Daddy Long Legs (letterboxed) and Weekend in Havana. The full-screen image (1.33:1) is a delight to the eye (especially in the musical segments), and the audio has been mastered at a very healthy volume. The 83-minute film has been given an extremely generous 24 chapters. The disc opens automatically on a very easy-to-use multi-layered menu that allows the viewer to move between bonus features and wander about a bit without losing one's place in the film itself. It's all enjoyable, and the best presentation that the movie has had in 60 years, at least as far as the viewing of the film itself. Let's just hope that when the studio gets around to its really bold, challenging, and important musicals, such as The Gang's All Here (1943), that they get all their cylinders firing at once and everyone rowing their best in the same direction. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide