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Footlight Serenade Overview:

Footlight Serenade (1942) was a Comedy - Musical Film directed by Gregory Ratoff and produced by William LeBaron.

Footlight Serenade BlogHub Articles:

Musical Monday: Footlight Serenade (1942)

It’s no secret that the Hollywood Comet loves musicals. In 2010, I revealed I had seen 400 movie musicals over the course of eight years. Now that number is over 600. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is my weekly feature about musicals. This week’s musical: Footlight Serenade (1942... Read full article


The Romantic Comedy Blogathon: Footlight Serenade (1942)

A BOY. A GIRL. A BOXER. ON BROADWAY! THE BOY Bill Smith came to the big town to make his mark, but the only success he's met with has been the romantic time. However, he is willing to temporarily leave his girl behind looking for a new start. She convinces him to stop by a theatr... Read full article


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Footlight Serenade Quotes:

Tommy Lundy: Will you come into my dressing room? Said the spider to the fly.
Pat Lambert: Oh, thank you, Mr. Spider, but I'm very, very shy.

Bruce McKay: She's closed up more nightclubs than the chief of police!
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Footlight Serenade Facts
Ironically, in the scene where Ms. Grable is rehearsing dance routines over and over (as she is the understudy) in the event she is called upon to fill in for the leading lady, her friend Flo, played by Jane Wyman, utters the line "You have as much chance of going on as I have of becoming First Lady." Of course, Ms Wyman's husband, Ronald Reagan, did become President, but was remarried to Nancy Davis by that time.

After this black-and-white production finished, Twentieth Century-Fox would implement the policy of utilizing Technicolor for all future Betty Grable features. The only monochromatic exception would be her guest spot in Four Jills in a Jeep, crooning the standard from 1908, "Cuddle Up a Little Closer" (music by Karl Hoschna, lyrics by Otto A. Harbach -- which she already had performed the year before in the Technicolored Coney Island. Miss Grable would not exempt from the Technicolor clause two black-and-white dramas offered her: The Razor's Edge (Anne Baxter's Oscar-winning part) and Pickup on South Street (the Jean Peters role). For Betty's final picture, How to Be Very, Very Popular, Color by DeLuxe was employed.

Unused in the release print, footage of Betty Grable and chorus girls performing "I'll Be Marching to a Love Song" (music by Ralph Rainger, lyrics by Leo Robin) would wind up in the all-star short subject, Hollywood Victory Caravan. In the 1942 feature, a brief bit of this number, serving as the coda, was done by Miss Grable, John Payne, Victor Mature and chorus. Another deletion was a slapstick dance routine by Miss Grable and Mr. Payne.

Twentieth Century-Fox had wanted to borrow Lucille Ball from RKO, but Miss Ball had no interest in playing the secondary part of Flo La Verne.

Surprisingly, given her ascending popularity with moviegoers at the time, Betty Grable was billed second to John Payne in this movie. However, poster art for the picture emphasized Betty in full figure. Later that year, Miss Grable would receive top billing over Mr. Payne in their next musical, Springtime in the Rockies.

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