From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- The Bright Lights Of Broadway –Betty Grable’s (Oh, Victor Mature’s too) “I Wake Up Screaming”- A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the film noir I Wake Up Screaming.

DVD Review

I Wake Up Screaming, starring Betty Grable, Victor Mature, 20th Century Fox, 1941


Recently I went to some lengths trying to decode another one of these 1940s film noirs, Douglas Sirk’s Lured, that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be just and off-hand melodrama or some spine-tinkling thriller and here I am with the same kind of problem. Hear me out, again.

It is quite possible to have a melodramatic film noir thriller, witness Mildred Pierce, Shadow Of A Doubt, and a fair number of other 1940s ventures. Moreover it is entirely possible, and I have the tired eyes from watching to prove it, to watch either a straight melodrama like Citizen Kane or a thriller like The Third Man or Rear Window but these hybrid attempts have left me dizzy.

Why? Well take the film under review, I Wake Up Screaming (an odd title since the only screaming done as far as I recall was when the cops were giving one or the other of the main characters the “third degree” but that was mainly for show and no one got as much as a bruise over those little sessions but I will let that pass). The subject matter centered on the dastardly murder of a young aspiring actress (formerly holding down a job serving them off the arm in some Broadway beanery), played by Carol Landis, but got caught up more in the boy meets girl (okay, okay man meets woman) love interest angle between said aspiring actress’s promoter (played by Victor Mature), the prime numero uno fall guy for the murder, and the murdered woman’s sister (played by girl-next-door and World War II pin-up Betty Grable). They could hardly wait for sis’s body to get cold before they started getting heated up for each other. So you can see where I might have just a little problem trying to get a fix on this on.

A little plot line investigation might give us some clues (not about the murder, jesus, no but about whether we dare call this thing a thriller for anybody but the lovebirds). Frankie (Victor Mature) is a, well, a guy who promotes stuff, he is to be kind a Broadway sportsman, eyes Vicky (Carol Landis) and decides that a star is born, and she makes it part way anyway. But as previously stated she winds up dead in her apartment which she shares with her sister Jill (Betty Grable) one fine afternoon. Like I said Frankie was the number one fall guy for the job. Motive: fickle femme Vicky was riding the stars to Hollywood sans one Broadway, uh, sportsman.

And the frame worked for a while, as one very overly aggressive cop who is prima facie evidence for why the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Miranda warnings exist, tries, for his own reasons to send Frankie to the gallows, or wherever the bad guys go. But Jill, and who would know better than a so-called bereaved sister, knows Frankie is not bad, just misunderstood as they go off into the Broadway night searching for- a swimming hole to cool off in. Oh yah, they get the bad guy in the end and the cop probably would get a reprimand for his over-eager police work but otherwise ho-hum. Naturally Jill and Frankie ride off into the sunset as newlyweds. Yes, I thought you would see it my way once you got the “skinny” on the plot. Remember that when you check this one, okay.