Betty Hutton burst on to the Hollywood scene about ten years before she made this biopic. She had a meteoric rise and fall at Paramount. By most accounts, including her own, she was notoriously difficult to work with on set. Probably because she was a perfectionist...well, that, and she could be insecure.
Despite her personality flaws, Hutton was a bonafide talent. Adept at song, dance and comedy, her hyperactive performance style went over like gangbusters with the public.
Paramount put her in a series of musical comedies and romantic comedies in the 1940s. A lot of these productions were hits at the box office, even if they were mostly forgettable. Arguably, her greatest films came at the end of her heyday, in the early 1950s.
Today people remember Hutton for the work she did on loan to MGM in ANNIE GET YOUR GUN. And for a memorable collaboration with Fred Astaire in LET'S DANCE. As well as her starring role in Cecil DeMille's Oscar winning spectacle THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH. She was coming off these career highs when she was assigned to do SOMEBODY LOVES ME. But this would be her last starring vehicle at the studio.
Hutton wasn't pushed out at Paramount for the reasons other people were pushed out. She had not actually run her course, she was not past her prime. In fact she was in the middle of a lucrative contract. She left Paramount because she was embroiled in a dispute with upper management over the type of material and treatment she was getting. In frustration, she did what Alice Faye had done at Fox at the height of her popularity...she walked out.
When you walk out on the big kahunas in Hollywood, you usually pay the piper. And Betty Hutton did. After leaving Paramount, she was blackballed and her career quickly lost momentum. She would be lucky to get hired in low-budget independent films, or to find sporadic work on TV in the years that followed. Some of Hutton's downfall involved her off-screen addictions, but that's another set of issues. She retreated from the limelight, though she never lost her zest for performing and entertaining.
As a big budget biopic, SOMEBODY LOVES ME is a decent enough effort. Hutton is cast as an old-time vaudeville star named Blossom Seeley who made a name for herself in the 1910s and helped bring jazz and ragtime into the mainstream. Seeley formed a team with another singer of the era, Benny Fields, whom she married. Seeley & Field's partnership is chronicled in the movie, and there are some nice moments...such as a sequence with Jack Benny who used to perform in the same places as them.
For the role of Benny Fields, Paramount borrowed Ralph Meeker from MGM, a surprising choice to costar opposite Betty Hutton. Surprising because Meeker was a disciple of the Method (he had been directed by Elia Kazan on Broadway, when tapped to fill in for Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire). Meeker's acting style couldn't have been more different from Hutton's if you tried.
Also, Meeker was not exactly musically inclined, and the role of Benny Fields requires musical talent. Despite these obvious discrepancies, Meeker does manage to register a fair amount of chemistry alongside Hutton, so it's not a total wash...and SOMEBODY LOVES ME was a hit for Paramount.
Musical biopics were in vogue in the 1940s and early 1950s. Hutton had previously played Texas Guinan in INCENDIARY BLONDE. Audiences liked to be reminded of their favorite old-time entertainers from yesteryear...people like Texas Guinan, Al Jolson, Blossom Seeley and Benny Fields. It was escapist entertainment for moviegoers who were needing a nostalgia fix.
Despite her personality flaws, Hutton was a bonafide talent. Adept at song, dance and comedy, her hyperactive performance style went over like gangbusters with the public.
Paramount put her in a series of musical comedies and romantic comedies in the 1940s. A lot of these productions were hits at the box office, even if they were mostly forgettable. Arguably, her greatest films came at the end of her heyday, in the early 1950s.
Today people remember Hutton for the work she did on loan to MGM in ANNIE GET YOUR GUN. And for a memorable collaboration with Fred Astaire in LET'S DANCE. As well as her starring role in Cecil DeMille's Oscar winning spectacle THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH. She was coming off these career highs when she was assigned to do SOMEBODY LOVES ME. But this would be her last starring vehicle at the studio.
Hutton wasn't pushed out at Paramount for the reasons other people were pushed out. She had not actually run her course, she was not past her prime. In fact she was in the middle of a lucrative contract. She left Paramount because she was embroiled in a dispute with upper management over the type of material and treatment she was getting. In frustration, she did what Alice Faye had done at Fox at the height of her popularity...she walked out.
When you walk out on the big kahunas in Hollywood, you usually pay the piper. And Betty Hutton did. After leaving Paramount, she was blackballed and her career quickly lost momentum. She would be lucky to get hired in low-budget independent films, or to find sporadic work on TV in the years that followed. Some of Hutton's downfall involved her off-screen addictions, but that's another set of issues. She retreated from the limelight, though she never lost her zest for performing and entertaining.
As a big budget biopic, SOMEBODY LOVES ME is a decent enough effort. Hutton is cast as an old-time vaudeville star named Blossom Seeley who made a name for herself in the 1910s and helped bring jazz and ragtime into the mainstream. Seeley formed a team with another singer of the era, Benny Fields, whom she married. Seeley & Field's partnership is chronicled in the movie, and there are some nice moments...such as a sequence with Jack Benny who used to perform in the same places as them.
For the role of Benny Fields, Paramount borrowed Ralph Meeker from MGM, a surprising choice to costar opposite Betty Hutton. Surprising because Meeker was a disciple of the Method (he had been directed by Elia Kazan on Broadway, when tapped to fill in for Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire). Meeker's acting style couldn't have been more different from Hutton's if you tried.
Also, Meeker was not exactly musically inclined, and the role of Benny Fields requires musical talent. Despite these obvious discrepancies, Meeker does manage to register a fair amount of chemistry alongside Hutton, so it's not a total wash...and SOMEBODY LOVES ME was a hit for Paramount.
Musical biopics were in vogue in the 1940s and early 1950s. Hutton had previously played Texas Guinan in INCENDIARY BLONDE. Audiences liked to be reminded of their favorite old-time entertainers from yesteryear...people like Texas Guinan, Al Jolson, Blossom Seeley and Benny Fields. It was escapist entertainment for moviegoers who were needing a nostalgia fix.