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Wabash Avenue (20th Century-Fox) brings Betty Grable back once again to what a studio publicity release hails as a "tried-and-true formula" picture. "The studio apologizes," says the handout coyly, "for putting her into a satire [That Lady in Ermine'] and asks forgiveness for that time two years ago when it showed her legs only once in eight reels—to the consternation of enraged millions."
The new Technicolored musical makes up for the lapse by showing as much of Betty as Hollywood can bare—no doubt to the delight of appreciative millions. While she wiggles and struts through I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate, all that stands between her and her fans are a few strategically placed tassels. In many another scene, the picture stands firmly on Betty's two gorgeous legs.
What the handout does not mention is that the studio, in its ardor to be tried & true, has remade Coney Island, a 1943 Grable hit, in a Chicago setting and called it Wabash Avenue. It is still the story of two conniving, double-crossing gamblers (Victor Mature and Phil Harris) who wrangle over the ownership of gaslight-era cafés and the affections of Betty Grable. A different musical score mixes oldtime songs with new ones that are so reminiscent that it is hard to tell which is which. For that matter, the new picture is hardly distinguishable from the original and, on any account, hardly distinguished. But Grable fans will treasure it for leaving so little to their imagination.
Champagne for Caesar (Harry Popkin; United Artists) has a head start over most Hollywood comedies: an original idea with some satiric bite. But it soon grows painfully clear that the idea has fallen into the wrong hands. Setting out to make radio's giveaway craze look silly, the picture winds up looking even sillier.
Ronald Colman plays Beauregard Bottomley, an omniscient bookworm who is convinced that radio's money-splurging quiz shows threaten the U.S. with "intellectual destruction," and sets out to strike a blow for intellectual salvation. An expert who can't be stumped, he appears on Soap Manufacturer Vincent Price's double-ornothing program week after week, letting his winnings pile up with the plan of taking over the whole $40-million soap company. When the alarmed hucksters try to give him what he has already won and get rid of him, a hero-loving public refuses to buy any soap unless he keeps going.
With a Clifton Webb playing the lead and some bright scripters on the job, the picture might have turned into a devastating satire of radio's foolish age. Veteran Colman does well enough in his orotund English style, but the writers fail him almost completely. Basically, they miss the vital point—which Miracle on 34th Street caught so well—that the story's fantastic premise should be played out as if the impossible were really happening. Instead, the film has been pitched on a wobbly note of broad burlesque with overtones of self-conscious whimsy, e.g., the soap company's headquarters all decked out in tricky, Daliesque sets with bare arms growing out of satin quilted walls.