There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954)

(On Cable TV, August 2022) Coming from the waning years of the Golden Hollywood musical, There’s No Business Like Show Business remains just as divisive today as it ever was. In an attempt to compete with television, movies went BIG by the mid-1950s, and this was as much of a razzle-dazzler as anything else. Consciously putting then-incandescent Marilyn Monroe front and centre alongside Donald O’Connor (weird pairing, but eh…), it artlessly crammed its musical numbers as Broadway pieces in the middle of a multi-year narrative about a showbiz family. It’s generally recognized that the film is better whenever Monroe is on-screen—although the impact of that will depend on how much you think of Monroe as a sex-symbol. (I prefer Monroe as a comedienne, and there’s little of that to be found here.)  For all of the impacts of numbers such as “Heat Wave,” however, Monroe remains in a supporting part, and you can feel the film trying to realign itself her way rather than spend more time on the rest of the cast. While There’s No Business Like Show Business is not a bad musical—the lavishness of the production alone prevents that—, it does miss a spark or something extra to truly become compelling. Monroe’s contribution isn’t that spark, and neither is O’Connor in a role that doesn’t seem to suit him all that well. It ends up being a thoroughly mixed bag of a film, and one that feels laboured most of the time. But some people love it! At least the glam still has an aura.