Blonde Fever (1944) User Reviews

Dorn is darn unlikable

[AlsExGal · 5/10 · 2 December 2016]

This is a real misfire of a film. The score and background music is light and goofy, indicating this is a comedy, but to me it is a tragedy as a good woman (Mary Astor as Delilah) sticks by her rotter of a husband, Peter (Philip Dorn), whose lying, infidelity in mind if not deed, gambling, and greed make Daffy Duck look like a profile in virtue. She even plans an elaborate ruse at the end of the film to try and keep him. Why? Peter has the hots for a worker at their restaurant, Sally (Gloria Grahame), who is all of 19. Peter does not want so much to get rid of his wife as he wants to fool around with Sally and then probably discard her, in spite of the fact that Sally has a fiancé who just does not have enough money with his job at a filling station to get married. If everybody would steer clear Peter would clear the field of the fiancé, corrupt the girl, and then go back to his wife leaving Sally a sadder but wiser girl.

The film is basically an hour long story about all of the impediments that stand in his way. Maybe a more talented actor than Dorn could have pulled this part off, although the part is written with such a lack of humanity and a bounty of foolishness and weakness of character that I wonder if even Cary Grant could have made it work. Grahame is very good in her first film role as the confused but greedy girl in the middle. Astor shines in this film with great dialogue delivered like a true pro. She saves it from being a total bomb along with Felix Bressart in a supporting role as the restaurant bar tender with his old world ways.

Mary Astor vs. Gloria Grahame -- But In a Comedy, Alas

[alonzoiii-1 · 5/10 · 8 May 2007]

Mary Astor, operator of a dude ranch near Reno and wedded to a feckless husband who has had problems with "other women" and gambling in the past, battles with golddigger in training Gloria Grahame, whose interest in suave hubby increases when she learns he's just won $40,000 on a lottery ticket. Will husband realize he should stick with stalwart Mary, or, being smitten with BLONDE FEVER, will he run off with the scheming Ms. Grahame?

While this movie has the plot (and the female cast) for a heckuva a mid-40s soap opera, this one is played as comedy. Alas. With the men playing their parts as broadly as possible, a lot of the result is painful. Nevertheless, Gloria Grahame, not yet a noir heroine, plays her not very nice role well enough, and Mary Astor, in one fairly long dramatic scene when she finally gets fed up with her worthless husband, demonstrates just how well she can act, if given the right part. Shame on MGM for sticking her with all those Mother roles.

Gloria Grahame's fans should love this little gem...

[Doylenf · 6/10 · 3 May 2007]

MARY ASTOR and PHILIP DORN are the nominal stars of BLONDE FEVER, but it's perky GLORIA GRAHAME in her film debut that makes the biggest impression. "There are only two kinds of girls," she tells the amorous Dorn. "Good girls and the other kind, and I certainly hope I'm not the other kind." MARHSALL THOMPSON plays her frustrated boyfriend.

Gloria Grahame gets a chance to show her sultry innocence as the waitress who fancies herself in love with wealthy restaurant owner, the middle-aged Philip Dorn. He encourages her infatuation, even telling her he'll leave his wife Mary Astor, if she will marry him.

The matrimonial discord gets a workout during the rest of the plot, but it all ends happily with Grahame riding off with Thompson on his motorcycle and Astor and Dorn reconciling their differences.

Trivia note: Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy have a brief moment on screen as a couple dining in Dorn's restaurant.

And Astor refers to Grahame as "the surry with the fringe on top", ironic in view of the fact that Gloria later played Ado Annie in Rodgers and Hammerstein's OKLAHOMA!

MGM Misfire

[dougdoepke · 17 August 2009]

There may be a laugh or two buried somewhere in this leaden comedy, but the 70-minutes are now of interest mainly to fans of noir icon Gloria Grahame. Looks like someone tried to adapt sophisticated European comedy to the popular American screen, and it might have worked with a different male lead. Unfortunately, Dutch-born Phillip Dorn makes a very good Nazi but a very poor Cary Grant. His efforts at mugging or delivering romantic dialogue are almost painful to sit through, and bring down the whole effort. Nor does it help that director (Whorf) is a first- timer with no apparent feel for the challenging material. Youngsters Thompson and Grahame do provide lively relief, but are facing what is ultimately a brick wall. And poor Mary Astor, she deserves so much better, but is now apparently on the MGM downgrade. In fact, it's hard to believe this is an MGM production, with its two or three cheap-jack sets that more resemble Monogram than the so-called Tiffany of studios. My guess is that the production was slapped together to meet eager wartime demand for escapist entertainment. This one may fall flat, but at least there's Grahame's special brand of pouty-lipped vamping.

It's so hard to like Mr. Donay that it's hard to like the film.

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 14 September 2021]

Philip Dorn plays Peter Donay, a co-owner of a very fancy restaurant. However, his wife (the other owner) realizes she's married to a handsome pig. Throughout the film, Peter tries to have his way with the pretty young waitress, Sally (Gloria Graham)...and his wife (Mary Astor) knows her hubby is a philanderer. But instead of divorcing him or even confronting him about this, she tries to manipulate Sally's young boyfriend into coming between her and Peter.

The film is supposed to be funny, though at least for me this was a tough order, as I just kept thinking Peter was a jerk and his wife way too longsuffering. Perhaps such a guy might have been seen as funny back in 1944, but today I think most viewers would just dislike him too much to make this a film to recommend to others. The film does have some good acting and the nice MGM polish....but the story just doesn't work out well due to the script.

A question of just deserts

[pumping_iron-1 · 6/10 · 29 July 2023]

A Silly farce about a married man, played by Phillip Dorn, chasing a girl half his age. The girl becomes amenable to his flirtations after he wins the forty thousand dollar lottery.

A young Gloria Grahame, who plays Sally, makes her film debut as she plays the role she is destined to play most of her acting career, the beauty with the irresistible sexual allure.

Mary Astor is marvelous as the understanding and clever wife.

Marshall Thompson, also making his film debut, plays Sally's fiancé, and Felix Bressart round out the cast.

Delightful to watch just to see how the wife cleverly outsmarts them both.

Keeping Astor's Place.

[mark.waltz · 3/10 · 26 March 2020]

The fabulous Mary Astor is the one saving element of this light romantic comedy that has a weak script and story, if not some good character performances, lacking sympathy for the leading man Philip Dorn (aka Mr Joan Crawford 1944) and providing newcomer Gloria Grahame (sans cheek fillers) with an unsympathetic nymphet character that no one will root for. Astor and Dorn own a dude ranch where Graham works as a cigarette girl and when Dorn wins the lottery, she turns her back on dishwasher fiance Marshall Thompson and makes an indiscreet pass at him. It's up to ask her to keep her head to try and make this marriage work, but with a serial philanderer like Dorn, is it really worth it?

This has his charming moments, thanks to the presence of Astor, witty chef Felix Bressart, Astor's lively society matron friend Elisabeth Risdon and cameos by Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy as a couple arguing at their dining table. Risdon, best known for playing the nagging aunt in the "Mexican Spitfire" series, is very funny, being revealed to be Thompson's passenger on the back of his motorbike, and speaking in hep lingo and offering advice one wouldn't normally expect from a society matron. If it wasn't for these few elements, I would have to rank blonde fever closer to a bomb because it's leading male and antagonist female are just simply too one-dimensional to be likeable.

"Isn't there enough confusion around here?"

[classicsoncall · 6/10 · 2 August 2023]

For what was presumably intended to be a light romantic comedy, this one had more than its share of unlikeable characters. Café owner Peter Dornay (Philip Dorn) is a dour womanizer with a more than tolerant wife (Mary Astor), who has his eye on a pretty waitress he can't wait to get his hands on. Sally Murfin (Gloria Grahame) for her part, plays Dornay off against her fiancé Freddie (Marshall Thompson), and that wouldn't have been so bad if she weren't a scheming gold digger. Grahame, in her film debut, comes across as a conniving flirt, and while charmingly cute, she comes across as vapid, and if I have to say it.., a dumb blonde. Maybe not so dumb in the way a woman attracts a man, because she seemingly wraps Dornay around her little finger, while leaving poor Freddie in the lurch. When Dornay happens to come up with a winning lottery ticket for forty thousand dollars, it's enough to convince Sally she ought to switch horses in midstream. Why Mrs. Dornay put up with her husband's indiscretions could only be ascribed to true love, which wins out in the end when Peter willingly signs over the lottery check as a consolation to his wife, which was enough to send Sally packing. Unlike Delilah (Astor), who was almost ready to leave, but in her own cunning way, didn't even pack in the first place.

Harmless but dated

[wmss-770-394192 · 4/10 · 22 March 2014]

I made it a point to watch this film because I read that it was Gloria Grahame's first film and I am a huge Grahame fan. Like most people I am most familiar with her work in the noir genre. I had assumed that "It's a Wonderful Life "was her first film, since that is where she actually garnered her first public attention, but clearly I was wrong. At any rate it wasn't bad for a first effort from her.

Mary Astor is good as the long suffering wife of a philandering husband with a gambling problem as well. Astor always rose above whatever material she was given and here is no exception. This film is lightweight wartime fluff. I would think that most people forgot about it the minute they left the theater.

Marshall Thompson, who is also making his film debut is appropriately goofy and yet charming as the boyfriend competing for the wandering attentions of Ms. Grahame's Sally.

Phillip Dorn is not an actor I'm that familiar with, but he's okay here as the husband , Mr.Donay, with the wandering eye (and lips, hands, etc.).

This is no masterpiece of fine film craftsmanship, but it is harmless if dated, as most women today wouldn't put up with Mr.Donay's nonsense and Ms. Grahame's character would have been looking for another job.

One other thing. People always talk about what a superior studio MGM was, but realistically they put out as much junk as the others. The difference was that they spent a ton of money on their huge musicals and big star vehicles, but their "B" pictures were as crappy as everybody else's.

cute

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 3 December 2012]

Based on a play by Ferenc Molnar, Blonde Fever is a 1944 slapped-together MGM comedy filmed in black and white and starring Philip Dorn, Mary Astor, Gloria Grahame (in her film debut) and Marshall Thompson with a mane of dark hair and looking unbelievably young.

The film concerns the owners of a dude ranch, Peter and Delilah Dornay (Dorn and Astor) and the young woman, Sally, (Grahame) who works there and seems to have come between them. Peter is feeling his age and reaching out to someone younger, and when he wins $40,000 on a lottery ticket, he summons up the courage to declare himself to Sally (whose supposed to be engaged to Freddie (Thompson) and promise her the moon. And she wants it. Then he has to break it to the long-suffering Delilah, who has put him with this flirtation as well as his past gambling debts.

Actually if someone had been back from the war to take the Dorn part, this wouldn't have been half bad. I notice all the reviewers on this site are raving about Grahame, who was wonderful and perfectly cast. For me, though, the star was Astor, whose performance is fabulous.

Someone said this was paid for comedy - Astor played it straight, and it worked beautifully. She's quick volleying lines and when they're coming out of her mouth, you realize the play wasn't badly written.

Unfortunately Astor was past her heyday (according to MGM) having hit the ungodly age of 38 and soon would be playing matrons. Here she's still glamorous and shows what a fine actress she was.

A bit on the down-low for MGM - this is the same type of thing they did to Crawford with "Above Suspicion" - black and white and cheap sets.

Without Feathers

[boblipton · 5/10 · 9 November 2023]

Philip Dorn and Mary Astor are a couple running a pricey roadhouse. Marshall Thompson and Gloria Grahame (in her screen debut) work for them and hope to get married. Then Dorn wins $40,000 in a sweepstakes, develops a passion for Miss Grahame, and she for him.

On paper it looks like a good set-up, with credited writers like Ferenc Molnar and George Oppenheimer. On the screen, alas, it works only intermittently, when Felix Bressart is speaking as the mlld-mannered bartender, and there are occasional sparks of witty dialogue between Dorn and Miss Astor. Otherwise, it's another Code-compliant, sexless sex comedy, with most of its budget spent pre-production, musical cues are lifted from the Andy Hardy series, and the main pleasure is playing spot-the-players in the crowd. Yes, that's Elisabeth Risdon on a motorcycle on the start. Yes, that's Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy at a table. It's not that there are any issues with the production. It's that there's no real issue in the movie, and we know from the beginning that everything will turn out all right.

Only for fans of Gloria Graham

[HotToastyRag · 3/10 · 19 January 2020]

If you like Gloria Graham, you'll want to check out the silly comedy Blonde Fever. If you don't like her, you'll want to avoid it, since she's the lead and her cutesy persona is on full display. She's a waitress in a small hotel, interested in her boss, Philip Dorn, only after she finds out he's won the lottery. Philip is already married to Mary Astor, who unfortunately has very little screen time. Gloria's boyfriend, Marshall Thompson is young and gawky, and Gloria flocks to Philip's age and inexperience-even though he has very little experience winning the lottery and cheating on his wife.

Felix Bressart is the headwaiter of the hotel's restaurant, and while he doesn't have much of a character, he's the one everyone in the movie comes to for advice. Gloria's very cute, but I think Felix is cuter, so I'll watch anything he's in. This isn't a movie I'll want to watch again, since the story isn't that great and the performances are a bit lacking, but if you like Gloria, you'll probably enjoy it.

*1/2*

[edwagreen · 3/10 · 12 December 2016]

Philip Dorn, of "I Remember Mama" fame had a chance as a leading man in this absolute 1944 clinker of a film.

The whole premise is ridiculous when Dorn, supposedly happily married to Mary Astor, falls for waitress Gloria Grahame, who talks in an annoying, childish and practically churlish existence, and the two plan to wed and she dump her boyfriend Marshall Thompson.

This whole mess of a film goes back and forth with the 4 thespians arguing continuously and with Astor coming up with a plan to win Dorn back.

The whole thing becomes annoying and actually tedious to watch. The only good thing here is that the film is less than 75 minutes.