Review of How to Be Very, Very Popular

Betty Grable, as Stormy, and Sheree North, as Curly(the 2 stoogeses?), are hoochi coochi dancers at a burlesque dive. One day, after they finish their act, Cherry Blossom Wang(Noel Toy) goes on stage, but is shot dead by a bald headed man. Everyone exits in a panic, and the shooter escapes. Bettie and Sheree put on long coats, to hide their burlesque outfit and escape out a window, as they are afraid the man wants to shoot them too. They think they can identify the killer, and don't want to get mixed up in a police investigation and trial. So, they hop on a bus, to an unknown destination, as far as their money will take them, which happens to be College City, home of Bristol College. They get off in the rain, not knowing where they should go. Betty sees a man in the window and decides to investigate, telling Sheree to wait outside(in the rain!) Betty peeks in the first door and sees a man(Tommy Noonan, as Eddie Jones), trying to hypnotize another. She moves on to the next door, and quietly goes in to greet a surprised man(Bob Cummings as Wedge), as this is a men's dormitory, who explains that he has been a student here for 17 years, as his grandfather willed money for his college education, without specifying how long it might be. Sheree goes in, and also peeks in the hypnotist's room. Somehow(?), she becomes hypnotized, rather than the man, and stays there. Jones, puts on a record by Salome, and Sheree begins to dance. From now on, while hypnotized, whenever, she hears Salome, or something close to it, mentioned, she will go into a dance. One time, someone mentioned that they wished they had a salami, and she went into a dance. Later, she and Betty dressed in cap gown(where did they get these?), joined others during the graduation ceremony. The guest speaker talked about the 2nd Greek-Persians war. We are about to see the most interesting segment of the film, when the speaker mentioned the naval battle near the island of Salamas. Sheree thought she heard Salome, takes off her cap and gown, to reveal her burlesque costume, and begins some dance and calisthenics movements across the stage. Eventually, she sweeps the diplomas off the table, gets on the table, and dances. The band plays "Shake, Rattle and Roll", which was a recent hit by Bill Haley and his Comets, announcing the coming Rock and Roll age.. Some of the students really graduating get up and circle around her on the table. Then, several gunshots are heard, aimed in the direction of Sheree, but none hitting anyone. Betty sees the same baldheaded man in the audience manage to get away in the pandemonium(Now, why would this man travel all the way to see this graduation, unless he got off the same bus as a lark, like the girls). The girls again fear for their life, and don't want to get involved in the police investigation., so hide out........Meanwhile, Dean Tweed(Charles Colburn) is informed that a Mr. B.J. Marshall(the charismatic Fred Clark) is arriving to see his son, Toby(Carson Bean), graduate. Now, B.J. is quite a wealthy man, and Tweed is hoping to get an endowment of around $1 million out of him. The only problem is that Toby was expelled a month ago, for heading a panty raid(Such raids were common in the '50s and '60s). Nonetheless, Tweed tells B.J. what a great son he has. Now, where to find him? Despite being expelled, he's been hanging around the dorm where Betty and Sherry visited. The police arrest B.J. as a suspect for the murder, since he has a bald head! Sheree's father, who also showed up, is arrested later, for the same reason(Now, why would he show up, since Sheree isn't a valid graduating senior??). Eventually, things get worked out......In her last Hollywood film, Betty didn't get to do a whole lot. The attention was more focused on Sheree, who substituted for the hoped for Marylin Monroe. Aside from her dance, and occasional kisses from some of the men, Sheree says very little because of her zombie -like condition. Nonetheless, I thought she did well. Colburn is adequate in his role as the Dean. Fred Clark was great as B.J.. Bob Cummings was adequate as the perpetual student. The screenplay has too many silly contrived elements to give the film a high mark. Granted, these often are required to further the interest of the screenplay. See it at YouTube. However, ,the print is somewhat fuzzy.