How to Be Very, Very Popular (1955)

Director:

Nunnally Johnson

Writers:

Edward Hope (novel)
Nunnally Johnson (writer)

Release Date:

6 January 1956 (Belgium)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

2 girls on the lam hide out in a college fraternity.

Plot Keywords:

College | Commencement | Burlesque Theater | Criminally Insane | Person In Hiding

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Betty Grable	...	Stormy Tornado
Sheree North	...	Curly Flagg
Robert Cummings	...	Fillmore 'Wedge' Wedgewood
Charles Coburn	...	Dr. Tweed
Tommy Noonan	...	Eddie Jones
Orson Bean	...	Toby Marshall
Fred Clark	...	B.J. Marshall
Charlotte Austin	...	Midge
Alice Pearce	...	Miss 'Syl' Sylvester
Rhys Williams	...	Cedric Flagg
Andrew Tombes	...	Sgt. Moon
Noel Toy	...	Cherry Blossom Wang
Emory Parnell	...	Chief of Police
Harry Carter	...	Bus Driver
Jesslyn Fax	...	Music Teacher

Runtime:

89 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.55 : 1

Sound Mix:

4-Track Stereo (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #17444) | Finland:S | Portugal:17 | Sweden:15

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

This was the final feature of Betty Grable's 25-year film career. Her first screen appearance in Let's Go Places (1930) had been released less than a month after Betty had turned 13 years old.

Quotes:

Stormy: Hey Curly!
Wedgewood: Not so loud... do you wanna get me expelled? Curly...
Curly: Yeah?
Wedgewood: Do you think you can get in here without being seen?
Curly: For what purpose?
Stormy: Don't argue the man's got a fried chicken in here.
Curly: Hold him.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Biography: Marilyn Monroe: The Mortal Goddess" (1996)

Soundtrack:

The Whiffenpoof Song

How to Be Very, Very Popular- Is Anything But *1/2

The film starts off as if I was seeing "Some Like it Hot" years before. Two strip-tease dancers witness the shooting death of a Chinese stripper on stage and are pursued by police and the killer alike. Sounds funny and promising but the film soon falls into a trap of utter stupidity.

Bette Grable (too old for the part) and Sheree North are the two fleeing strippers who wind up in a college dormitory and cause mayhem there. North is accidentally hypnotized by Tommy Noonan and spends much of the picture in a hypnotic state. How fortunate for her.

There are two really good performances here by Charles Coburn, as the college dean, more interested in the college getting money than actually providing education and Alice Pearce, as a wacky housemother in the school.

Fred Clark, as the millionaire father, who doesn't know that his son, Orson Bean, has been expelled is given the part of the guy getting hit over the head as he is confused with the killer. Rhys Williams gets the same treatment as North's father.

Bette Grable plays Stormy Tornado. Stormy? This storm blew out to sea. Big-time.