Movie Monday: Easy to Wed

 

Movie Monday: Easy to Wed

By the middle of 1946, most people were trying to put memories of the war behind them. In response, many of the films put out by Hollywood were lighthearted comedies or musicals. The July 1946 release Easy to Wed combined both and starred Van Johnson, Esther Williams, Lucille Ball, and Keenan Wynn.

The movie was an adaptation of the screenplay of the 1936 movie Libeled Lady, the fifth of fourteen films that Myrna Loy and Williams Powell made together. Jean Harlow and Spencer Tracy also starred in the movie. The plots are the same, but as one site indicated Libeled Lady was sharp 1930s comedy, and Easy to Wed was a typical 1940s Hollywood musical “with the added obligatory swimming scenes to showcase Esther Williams.”

At the time, Williams and Johnson were big names in Hollywood, garnering headlines and big salaries.

Lucille Ball had only managed to be cast in small roles (sidekicks) or in B-movies and would later say the film was the highlight of her career “because she was finally given a good part.” She is mentioned in quite a few reviews as stealing the show: “a standout on the comedy end,” not surprising considering her vast talent.

Imdb’s description of the plot is simple: “To prevent libel against the paper, a reporter tries to compromise the reputation of a tycoon’s slandered daughter,” but there’s more to the story than meets the eye. In reality the tycoon is trying to save his paper from financial ruin, and a convoluted scheme introduces issues of alienation of affection, blackmail, and suspected bigamy, (later determined to be unfounded or the movie wouldn’t have passed code!)

The remake of Libeled Lady was announced in July 1944 and work began with casting and other production tasks. Keenan Wynn’s motorcycle accident in March 1945 brought filming to a screeching halt (pun intended.) It’s interesting that Williams was cast in a film that required singing as this was not a skill she brought to the table. Her songs were in Portuguese making them all the more difficult, so the studio hired Brazilian singer/dancer/actress Carmen Miranda to coach Esther and Van Johnson. Another injury associated with the film was Lucille Ball’s broken toe suffered during one of the dance scenes.

A wild success, the movie exceeded box office expectations and raking in over five-and-a-half million dollars with the studio realizing a profit of $1.6M (equating to an astonishing $27M in today’s money).

Have you seen this classic?

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About Eye of the Beholder

Shunned for his appearance, a disfigured veteran encounters acceptance and love where he least expects it.

Left with physical and emotional scars after the Great War, Hank Drake has been shunned by polite society as the Ugly Duckling. Fine by him. He’d much rather be alone. Until he meets the kind proprietress of a tea stand at New York’s World’s Fair who isn’t repulsed by his appearance. Can he hope for acceptance…or even love?

Grace Sutton has no interest in marrying and is tired of her parent’s snide comments that she’s still single on the eve of her 40th birthday. After she loses her job thanks to budget cuts, she decides it’s time to follow her dream of feeding others. Armed with Mrs. Canfield’s cookbook, she opens a refreshment stand at the World’s Fair unaware how one man will turn her life upside down and upset the apple…er, tea cart.

Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3Pz88KO

Photo Credits:

Movie poster: Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25565333

Movie stills: Courtesy MGM Studios

Movie Monday: Road to Utopia

Movie Monday: Road to Utopia

Released in the U.S. on February 27, 1946, Road to Utopia, fourth in the seven-movie “Road to…” series, was filmed in late 1943 and early 1944. As one site put it, viewers probably would have enjoyed watching during the tense time between Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge, but Hollywood had other plans.

Starring Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Dorothy Lamour, Road to Utopia is told in flashback after Chester (Hope) and Sal (Lamour) during a visit by their friend Duke (Crosby) and reminisce about their days in the Alaskan Klondike when the three searched for gold. Various villains chase them for their map while Chester and Duke compete for Sal’s love.

With the usual silly dialogue and slapstick action, Road to Utopia adds innuendo (especially a moment at the end) that surprisingly got past the Motion Picture Production Code as well as the quirky gimmick of Robert Benchley popping in to break the “fourth wall” and offer comments. The plot is thin and includes talking animals and a cameo appearance by Santa Clause.

The film is directed by Hal Walker who directed four of the Road movies and some of Dean Martin’s

and Jerry Lewis’s pictures. A fun fact is that Walker was born in Ottumwa, Iowa (hometown of M*A*S*H character Radar O’Reilly). One source indicates it was the Hope, Crosby, and Lamour trio that convinced studio executives to hire Walker for the series.

By the time she’d been selected as a lead in the Road movies, Lamour had more than a dozen movies under her belt. Crosby and Hope were also film veterans with Crosby’s Hollywood career starting in 1930 and Hope’s a few years later. The supporting cast is filled with characters actors long forgotten but who were well-known at the time. One, Jerry Colonna, would accompany Bob Hope in countless USO tours in the decades following WWII.

Written by Johnny Burke (lyrics) and Jimmy Van Heusen (music), the film’s soundtrack was popular, and “Personality” charted at number nine, and the Johnny Mercer and The Pied Pipers version hit number one. The critics loved the movie and were effusive with their praise. Tenth in the list of top-grossing movies of 1946, Road to Utopia received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay but lost to the British melodrama The Seventh Veil.

Have you seen this classic?

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Shetland Sunset (Coming 03*06*26):

Bonded by a cause but an ocean apart, will their love survive a world war?

After months in Norway helping his cousins with their fishing business, American Askel Westgard seems trapped when the Germans invade until he has a chance to get back at the Occupiers as part of the Shetlandsgjengen, or Shetland gang, a group of fishermen who transport weapons and equipment from Shetland to Norway under cover of darkness. Unfortunately, the beautiful Norwegian woman he’s just met refuses to join him in safety. Will he ever see her again?

Distraught when the Germans overrun her beloved Norway, Tonje Bondevik refuses to take the occupation sitting down. She joins the fledgling resistance movement, deriving great satisfaction distributing the underground newspaper and performing acts of sabotage…until the day the Nazis come looking for her, and she must flee for her life. Perhaps she should have listened to the handsome Norwegian-American when he offered to take her to Shetland.

Pre-order Link: https://books2read.com/u/4AWqJk

Sources:
https://paramount-pics.fandom.com/wiki/Road_to_Utopia
https://obscurehollywood.net/road-to-utopia-1945.html
https://www.classicmoviehub.com/facts-and-trivia/film/road-to-utopia-1946/
https://laurasmiscmusings.blogspot.com/2025/12/tonights-movie-road-to-utopia-1945-kino.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_to_Utopia

Photo credits:
Movie poster: By http://www.impawards.com/1945/road_to_utopia.html. Fair use.
Crosby and Lamour movie still: Courtesy Paramount Pictures
Hope and Crosby movie still: Courtesy Paramount Pictures

Wartime Wednesday: January 1946

Wartime Wednesday: January 1946

By January 1946, World War II had officially been over for four months, but “administration” and logistics continued. The War Department announced a slowdown in demobilizing members of the armed forces from 800,000 to 300,000 per month. Unsurprisingly, there were protests by soldiers, sailors, and airmen as well as the public. The decision was quickly reversed as a result of the “Bring ‘em Home” movement.

The Japanese were stunned when Emperor Hirohito announced on radio that the emperor is “not a living god,” and he was not descended from the Shinto sun goddess Amaterasu Omikami. He also stated that citizens should no longer believe “the false conception…that the Japanese people are superior to other races and fated to rule the world.” He was not charged with war crimes, but General MacArthur began a two-plus-year purge of “undesirable people in office” resulting in over 210,000 individuals being removed or barred from serving.

January also saw the US.. Army partially remove a ban against marriage between American soldiers and

enemy nationals. This allowed servicemen to take Austrian brides. The ban was not lifted for German nationals until December.

Nazi Adolf Eichman escaped from an American detention camp where he’d hidden is identity with the alias SS Lt. Otto Eckmann. He fled to Austria, then Italy, and finally Argentina where he changed his name to Ricardo Klement. He was caught in May, 1960 and executed.

Vietnam saw its first democratic elections, and the last Japanese prisoners of war left the U.S. for home. The People’s Republic of Albania was declared, and the Soviet Union ratified a treaty with Poland that had been signed in August 1945. On the January 10, the first meeting of the General Assembly convened with delegates from fifty-one nations. The organizations first president, Belgium’s Paul-Henri Spaak, was elected. A week later, the United Nations Security Council held its first meeting with Australian politician and diplomat Norman Makin presiding.

January 19 saw the creation of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East by General Douglas MacArthur. By 1948, the tribunal would obtain twenty-five convictions, seven of them with death sentences for Japanese war criminals, including former Prime Minister Hideko Tojo. The following day Charles de Gaulle resigned as Chairman of the Provisional Government of the French Republic.

By the end of the month the first multi-party elections in almost fifteen years took place in the American occupied zone of Germany. Similar elections were later held in the French, British, and Soviet zones.

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Spies & Sweethearts

She wants to do her part. He’s just trying to stay out of the stockade. Will two agents deep behind enemy lines find capture… or love?

1942. Emily Strealer is tired of being told what she can’t do. Wanting to prove herself to her older sisters and do her part for the war effort, the high school French teacher joins the OSS and trains to become a covert operative. And when she completes her training, she finds herself parachuting into occupied France with her instructor to send radio signals to the Resistance.

Major Gerard Lucas has always been a rogue. Transferring to the so-called “Office of Dirty Tricks” to escape a court-martial, he poses as a husband to one of his trainees on a dangerous secret mission. But when their cover is blown after only three weeks, he has to flee with the young schoolteacher to avoid Nazi arrest.

Running for their lives, Emily clings to her mentor’s military experience during the harrowing three-hundred-mile trek to neutral Switzerland. And while Gerard can’t bear the thought of his partner falling into German hands, their forged papers might not be enough to get them over the border.

Can the fugitive pair receive God’s grace to elude the SS and discover the future He intended?
Purchase Link: https://books2read.com/u/m0Od9l

Photo credits:

General Douglas MacArthur and Japanese Emperor Hirohito: By Gaetano Faillace - https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-299-152/, Public Domain. 

American Soldier and his girlfriend: Courtesy Imperial War Museum

Japanese Prime Minister Hideko Tojo: By Unknown author - Hideki Tojo Alchetron: Free Social Encyclopedia of the World, Public Domain.