On the Town – Mismatched Couples Blogathon

Okay, here is my second entry for this blogathon. We’re going again to Frank Sinatra and Betty Garrett. As I mentioned in my Take Me Out to the Ball Game post, it is not so much that I find them mismatched as they have opposite personalities. In Frank’s earlier years, he often played the shy guy with no experience with women.

If you purchase this film, I may earn a commission as an Amazon affiliate: DVD, Bluray, or rent/stream!

While that isn’t presented here as much, he still is the one that is apprehensive while Betty Garrett’s character is the aggressor. She knows that she wants him and she’s not afraid to go after him and invite him up to her place. Not sure if that was the clear innuendo it is today.. but it really seems like it given they start making out once they’re in her apartment. I do find it interesting though that both here and in Ball Game, he does actually initiate the first kiss. Hildy may be the one pushing and putting the ideas in Chip’s head, but once it comes down to it and he gives in, he’s all in.

Synopsis

Three sailors get a 24-hour leave in New York. One of them (Frank playing Chip) wants to be sure to see all the sights, another (Gene as Gabe) wants to find the girls, and Ozzy (Jules Munshin) is kind of just along for the ride. We get some cool shots of New York as they wander around, seeing a bunch of the familiar sites. When they make it to the subway, Gabe sees a picture of “Miss Turnstiles,” aka Ivy (Vera-Ellen) and decides he must find her. Just any girl will not do any longer, he only wants her.

So they go off in search of Miss Turnstiles and meet Hildy (Betty Garrett) as a NY cab driver, who insists that Chip sit up front with her because she’s decided already that she wants him. A lot of insta-love going on in this movie, but that’s often how it goes in these! So they follow clues from Ivy’s picture that she likes museums, so they go to the Museum of Anthropological History, where they meet Claire, played by Ann Miller. They then must dance and we get to see Ann’s stellar dance moves while they play with museum artifacts. They’re lucky no one catches them… ha.

After this they split up, Gabe searching on his own while Ozzy and Claire go off together and Chip and Hildy go off together… presumably to all get lucky, but then Chip thinks that Hildy is going to take him for some more sightseeing when all she wants to do is get him up to her place. She eventually does, but, oh no! Her rommate Lucy is home sick, so they can’t get lucky on the couch as planned, but they convince her to leave even though she’s all drippy and gross from her cold.

Thankfully, Gabe finds Ivy on his own and everyone meets up that night on the top of the Empire State Building. What are the other couples doing all day? That’s a pretty big chunk of time, so I’m going with that everyone gets lucky, except for Gabe and Ivy, who have to wait the rest of the day to meet up at 8:30. They then go bar, I mean club, hoping until Ivy is like, I have to go to work, so she rushes off and Lucy becomes Gabe’s replacement date, which he is unhappy about so he hallucinates a ballet sequence with Ivy.

At one of the bars, Gabe runs into Ivy’s teacher, who he met when he cornered her during her dance lesson, and she tells him Ivy is working at Coney Island. Say what? He thought she was a debutante! Nope, turns out she’s a cooch dancer. They all reunite and he loves her anyway, but then the police arrest the guys because they say they stole a cab (it was Hildy’s cab and she was driving them around, so that won’t hold up) and they broke a dinosaur skeleton at the museum (which they did do cause Ozzy bumped it and they ran). So the guys spend what’s left of the evening in jail before they’re released in the morning to go back to their ship. The girls meet them, running into their arms and kissing before they head back to the ship and a new trio of men exit for leave… presumably to start the whole cycle over again!

The Players

Frank Sinatra and Betty Garrett

Again, it’s no secret that I find these two simply adorable and her pursuit of them endearing. This clip is when he thinks she’s going to take him on a sightseeing tour, but she has other plans. Chip takes a bit of convincing first…

but then..by the time their day of bliss at her apartment is over, he’s in love!

Also starring…

Gene Kelly and Vera-Ellen do this great number when his stalking attempt succeeds and he finds her! Okay, he’s cute, so it’s fine.

Jules Munshin and Ann Miller

I do love that Jules gets a girl in this one (unlike Take Me Out to the Ball Game), and Claire is so much fun! Apparently she’s man-crazy and thinks she’s cured herself until she meets Ozzy and takes him home to go through her “social register” at “home.” We’re on to you, Claire..

Honorable Mention to…

The mismatched, but perfect, relationship with Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly.

As I mentioned, Frank’s dancing in Anchors Aweigh, while good, is not as confident until he hit Take Me Out to the Ball Game. If you look closely in the “I Begged Her” number in that film, you can see him watching Gene’s feet. He doesn’t do that in Ball Game or On the Town. Sinatra is quoted as saying about their films together, “I could never dance, but Gene Kelly made me look like I could.”

Background Trivia

So we have to talk about the fact that this film was the first musical film to be shot on location. The opening scene where they’re sightseeing in New York was important and set the stage for films to follow.

Ann Miller takes credit for this because she pleaded with Louis B. Mayer to film on location because she’d never been to New York.

Frank was super popular when this was filmed.

They filmed for 5 days in New York and Frank was instantly recognized by fans. Instead of using limousines, the cast used cabs to get around the city to try to conceal him from being bombarded by fans while they were trying to shoot.

They reference Frank’s affair with Ava Gardner.

Ozzy (Jules) asks Gabe (Gene) who he has waiting for him in New York? Ava Gardner? I guess at least they didn’t use the line on Frank.

Frank needed padding in an interesting place..

So this is a weird costume note. Given how skinny Frank was at this time, he had to wear prosthetic padding to fill out his backside… yes, he had a fake booty in this movie!

Frank didn’t want to do the movie…

But Arthur Freed (the producer) promised him he could sing the song “Lonely Town.” Unfortunately, directors Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen decided not to film it even though Frank pre-recorded it. He was not happy.

What if…

They had entirely filmed on a sound stage.

The movie would not nearly have the same feel if they hadn’t gotten to show the sailors running around New York. It makes for a great scene and helped pave the way for more movies to be filmed on location.

Frank had turned it down.

Can you even imagine? This would have been a completely different movie if Frank had turned it down. We wouldn’t have gotten the reunion of him and Betty, or another film with him and Gene. I don’t even know who they would have had in it instead of him, but anyone I think of just feels wrong. Maybe Donald O’Connor could have pulled it off, but it would still have been so different.

If you like alternative history or biographical/historical fiction, I write that as well under the pen name Dottie Fray.

Check out the other entries in the Mismatched Couples Blogathon!

If you purchase this film, I may earn a commission as an Amazon affiliate: DVD, Bluray, or rent/stream!