Big, splashy, popular, this fictionalized bio-pic of Speak Easy legend Texas Guinan (brassy nightclub owner famous for greeting B’way customers with ‘Hello, Suckers!’) holds up nicely. Betty Hutton is deceptively disciplined and tremendously likable rising from tent shows to early film stardom before finding her ultimate niche running a lowdown/high class B’way society night spot during prohibition. Many all-out physical comedians like Hutton come up short when they turn to drama, dropping their shtick and overplaying new found sincerity. But Hutton finds a middle path that works for her and the movie. She's terrific, even if the film is a cut below her best. She’s fortunate in leading man Auturo de Córdova, one of the great stars of Mexico Golden Age Cinema (fresh off Julio Bracho’s CREPÚSCULO/ TWILIGHT/’45) as her star-crossed lover, the two kept apart by matters medical, financial & criminal. Hutton also gets some unusually energized megging from journeyman George Marshall. Heck, Marshall, if no Minnelli, even shows some interest in period detail on this big TechniColor production. Hutton fanciers will note how much the first half anticipates ANNIE GET YOUR GUN (on B’way in ‘46; filmed with Hutton in 1950), while Streisand fanciers will note intimations of FUNNY GIRL in the second. Beating that one by a couple of decades.
DOUBLE-BILL: As mentioned above, ANNIE and FUNNY.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: INCENDIARY has to finesse a tragic ending, so it starts with the funeral before flashing back to Texas Guinan’s early days and wraps up before we get back to it. Oddly, Preston Sturges (Hutton’s writer/director in MIRACLE OF MORGAN’S CREEK/’43) got into all sorts of trouble at Paramount attempting something a little non-linear, but not all so different than what we see here in his medical bio-pic THE GREAT MOMENT/’44. Why it became such a sticking point between Sturges and the studio that signed off on this is something of a mystery.
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