Word: misters
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...hard to find exactly the right word to characterize 20th Century Fox's new Technicolor musical, "Call Me Mister." The movie isn't painful, any more than anesthesia is painful. At the same time it's not "anesthetic," because it's noisy enough to keep you awake. Probably the most accurate description was given by a young actress who called it "the most 'nothing' picture I've ever seen...
...expect anything like the stage version of "Call Me Mister," you'll be sadly disappointed. There are only a few pitiful vestiges of the revue, notably the "Going-Home Train" scene and the sketch about the Air Force's boy general. The plot concerns a G.I. in Japan (Dan Dailey) and his legally separated wife (Betty Grable.) The wife is with a female entertainment outfit called the WOOF's or WAP's or something equally non-existant. After a great deal of childness, the movie ends in a clinch while a gushing fountain gushes and revolving stages revolve...
...sing or dance, but that's no reason to pick on him. The only person who seems to know what he's doing is Danny Thomas, a comedian who happens to be funny even though he is in the same movie with the others. "Call Me Mister" is a "nothing" movie. That's an achievement of a sort...
...conventional a villain; the Captain is too ordinary a disciplinarian.The play also suffers from that iron law of stages, the 11 o'clock curtain. For two acts it stirs in a good deal of miscellaneous material, from a comically brief sea fight to a farcical midshipman out of Mister Roberts...
Decca's late president, Jack Kapp, fathered the original-cast musical recording with George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, and his company has set the pace ever since (Carousel, Call Me Mister, Annie Get Your Gun). But the competition is furious. Producers' royalties have shot up to 10% per record, and producers switch unpredictably to different labels as they bring out new shows. RCA Victor cinched the rights to Call Me Madam by financing the musicomedy for $225,000, but had to do without Star Ethel Merman, whose recording contract committed her to do the songs...