The New Pictures, Dec. 15, 1941

I Wake Up Screaming (20th Century-Fox) is a showcase for the renowned torsos of bountiful Betty Grable and beautiful Victor Mature. A melodramiable mystery, well-directed, nicely acted, competently atmospherical, it is notable for a complete absence of gunplay and for a slick performance by enormous (290-lb). Laird Cregar, as the psychopathic head of a homicide squad.

The picture is concerned with the ultimate capture of a fiend who murders Miss Grable’s sister (Carole Landis), a hash-house honey whom Mr. Mature, a lowbrow sports promoter, inadvertently promotes right out of his life to Hollywood. Everyone gets what is coming to him.

Notably awkward finesse: Motoring Grable home from a Manhattan nightclub after a hard day’s grilling at police head quarters, Sport Mature, asked what he intends to do after seeing her home, says he’s going swimming. Always goes swimming about that time of the morning at a luxurious indoor pool. Grable, of course, joins him, so that the palpitating pair, without the excuse of California sun or Caribbean climate, can exhibit their torsos to the audience before picking up the plot they left behind.

Elsewhere, Torsoists Grable and Mature perform agreeably, under a tight directorial rein. Miss Grable does not, as one enthusiastic studio publicist put it, “overcome the handicap of possessing one of the finest figures in the nation,” but she is pleasantly subdued, works hard, neither sings nor dances. Mr. Mature, who occasionally slips his diction and looks as if he needs more sleep, is every inch the matinee idol (height, six-foot-two-and-a-half; weight, 198 Ib.; chest, 45 in.; waist, 33 in.). Says he: “Sometimes I can’t see what the girls see in me. I’m revolting!”

Rise And Shine (20th Century-Fox). Jack Oakie is back in the lineup. His cleats haven’t scuffed a gridiron since he won his last P at Paramount a decade ago. Those were the days of the great Paramount teams, starring such rugged individuals as Buddy Rogers, Richard Arlen, Mary Brian. Now a tubby 38, Oakie turns out to be the back-of-the-year at his new alma mater.

Well-cast as a dumb, sleepy, semi-inhibited sophomore named Bradislaus (“Boley”) Bolenciewcsz, Oakie mugs Clayton College to a national championship in a wacky welter of song & dance, romance and slapstick. With the greatest of ease he polishes off Yale, 82-to-0; Notre Dame, 6-to-5; Minnesota, 27-to-0. He beats Notre Dame with a last-minute touchdown when someone capitalizes on his fear of floods by yelling, “The dam has burst!” — frightening him the length of the field.

The star halfback’s only worry is his yearly examination. Asked just one question (“Name any means of transportation”), he doesn’t know what transportation means. Whispers a student (Linda Darnell): “What do you do to stay in shape?” Says Oakie: “Train.”

A slaphappy, overlong mixture of You Can’t Take It With You, Rackety Rax and assorted gags, Rise And Shine in no way resembles the original on which it was based: Humorist James Thurber’s My Life and Hard Times. But it has enough good farce to make it go — especially Walter Brennan’s portrayal of a glandular octogenarian with a propensity for showing his Civil War etchings to willing blondes.

Keep ‘Em Flying (Universal) is Abbott & Costello’s fourth picture in ten months, their third crack at the armed forces of the U.S. Having thoroughly balled up the Army and the Navy, the slapsticky pair of onetime burlesque comedians this time tackle the Air Corps. The result is sad.

Little Lou Costello, fat & funny, is a great clown. Bud Abbott, skinny & sour, is a first-rate straight man. On their own, the two can be counted on to supply plenty of low-comedy guffaws. But greedy Universal has almost squeezed the last laugh out of them before their first cinema year’s end.

Keep ‘Em Flying winds Abbott & Costello round & round with a silly plot about a barnstorming stunt flier (Dick Foran), his rival (William Gargan) and a girl (Carol Bruce). The picture uses a civilian pilot training school for background, some poor songs for vocal relief, and makes noisy, big-mouthed Martha Raye play twins, which is too much of a loud thing.

Struggling valiantly with this mulligatawny soup A & C very nearly choke themselves, repeat gags that have now become too familiar for repetition, only occasionally reach their former heights of unabashed zaneity. It will take a fresh tankful of high octane to keep A & C flying.

. . . .

A jolt for U.S. citizens who are unaware that World War II is catching up with them is MARCH OF TIME’S current feature, Main Street, U.S.A. Its catalogue of civilian defense activities, rising prices, goods shortages, is impressive and sobering. So is its imaginary finale: a typical U.S. city writhing under the totalitarian rule after a Hitler victory.