Fox Home Entertainment has lately been issuing more of its classic musicals on made-on-demand DVD-Rs, via the Fox Cinema Archives label. Very quietly, many of the famous musicals of Betty Grable, Alice Faye and others have been hitting the marketplace, some in better picture and sound quality than others. One of the most important, and best, of Betty Grable's musicals is happily one of the better-looking titles of the bunch: Mother Wore Tights (1947).

This was Twentieth Century-Fox's biggest hit of 1947 (even bigger than Forever Amber) and the fourth highest grossing movie overall for that year. It was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Color Cinematography, Best Original Song ("You Do"), and Best Scoring, for which it won.

But Mother Wore Tights is the type of classic film that today is often dismissed merely as silly, popular entertainment. In truth, it deserves far more respect. After all, audiences have shown in recent years that they still respond strongly to musical performances on screen, given the enormous success of musical reality shows on television, dance videos on youtube and social media, and occasional big-screen musicals. Yet the current movie musicals tend to be stage adaptations and have a forced, theatrical feel; a truly integrated musical film like Hollywood used to make so skillfully in the studio era remains a very rare bird. Mother Wore Tights may not be a musical for the ages like Singin' in the Rain (1952) or Swing Time (1936), but it is nonetheless extremely sophisticated in its musical storytelling and as such is a good reminder of what is possible to achieve in the genre. It's also important as a vivid reflection of a particular era in American society.

The film spans the first sixteen years or so of the 1900s, telling the story of a couple (Betty Grable and Dan Dailey) who build a routine as a pair of vaudeville musical performers, get married and have two kids. The focus is not on a strongly driving plot but rather on a series of episodes in these characters' lives, with the aim of imbuing a pleasantly nostalgic atmosphere. An off-screen Anne Baxter, as one of the couple's now-grown children, narrates the film as an extended flashback, and she brings much emotional feeling to her voiceover, infusing it with sweetness and warmth. In this sense, Mother Wore Tights is very much akin to movies like I Remember Mama (1948), Chicken Every Sunday (1949), Stars in My Crown (1950) (which it especially resembles), and I'd Climb the Highest Mountain (1951). The release years are no accident: all these films are slices of gentle Americana, suffused with nostalgia, that touch upon a post-World War II longing for American society to get back to normal, to the way things were in a supposedly simpler time. Mother Wore Tights is a fairly simple little musical with no real showstopping, high-octane production numbers, so clearly the thing about it that so resonated with moviegoers was this warm emotional tone -- not to mention Betty Grable, the top female box-office draw of the time.

Mother Wore Tights was not only Grable's biggest moneymaker up to that point, but her favorite film of her career. She's certainly at her most likeable and appealing in it. Grable was not a classic beauty, or even especially "pretty." And while she could sing and dance perfectly well, she was not spectacularly talented at either. But she had a sex appeal -- it came from her endearingly down-to-earth demeanor, from her combination of energy, modesty and girl-next-door earnestness. And of course from those famous legs, which Fox insured for $1 million. Grable was a star before World War II, became the #1 pinup girl during the war, and remained a top star for years afterward, beloved by both men and women. With Mother Wore Tights, Fox gave her top-shelf production design, color, costumes, the works -- and paired her for the first time with Dan Dailey, an ideal choice. His part was originally meant for Fred Astaire or James Cagney, but the studio was unable to land either, which is a good thing, for they would have unbalanced this film and drawn too much attention away from Grable. Dailey was not yet a star, but he meshed with Grable's persona perfectly, offering his own brand of down-home charm. The two are believable together, and their characters feel like equals. Audiences responded so well that Grable and Dailey were paired in three further musicals: When My Baby Smiles at Me (1948), My Blue Heaven (1950), and Call Me Mister (1951).

But the best thing Fox gave Grable in this picture was a musical story built around her strengths and her persona. In the opening sequence, we are introduced to Grable and Dailey as an old married couple napping on a porch, and then, thanks to quick, humorous cuts to their past, as energetic singers and dancers. Then we flash back further, to Grable's high school dance in Oakland, and to her post-graduate trip across the bay to a new life in San Francisco. Through all this, Anne Baxter's narration establishes a tone of sweet humor and family nostalgia, perfectly setting up the attitude of the entire film. And it's only on the boat, a full five minutes into the movie, that the first word of dialogue is uttered. (Any prior words have all been in the narration or song lyrics.) In just a few minutes, then, Mother Wore Tights has navigated a tremendous amount of time and space, and introduced its characters, story, and approach in very cinematic terms -- and in musical terms. Grable and Dailey have been established as musical performers above all else.

And the film doesn't stop there. Two minutes of screen time after the boat, the movie has found a way for Betty Grable to raise her dress and show her famous legs to a vaudeville producer (and us!); three minutes later, she meets Dan Dailey during a musical number. The point is that by introducing the two characters musically, in both the present and the past, by making them equal in that approach, Mother Wore Tights has aligned us with them musically and made us accept them as performers without our even thinking about it. This is the result of a conceptual skill and sophistication which is rarely on display anymore, but which Hollywood honed to an art form during the studio era. It seems easy and effortless but is actually quite complex. The main story conflicts of this film involve tension between work and having kids, and later on over one child's embarrassment at her parents' professions. Both conflicts will be resolved musically. In fact, all the major problems and tensions will be resolved through song and/or dance -- something that we may not even notice consciously while we're watching, but which keeps the film unified and satisfying.

All this is not meant to make a case for Mother Wore Tights as one of the finest Hollywood musicals -- it's not. Rather, it's to illuminate the high craftsmanship that permeates even a piece of "mere" popular entertainment like this one. This is a bread-and-butter musical for Fox in the '40s, a typical example of what they could do very well. Even the songs, by Mack Gordon and Josef Myrow, exist at the level of generally sufficient yet consistently pleasing, though the sweet "I Do" and the infectious "Kokomo, Indiana" do stand out. (The former was Oscar-nominated, but the latter became a big hit.) The supporting cast is solid, with Sara Allgood memorable as Grable's plucky mother, and young Mona Freeman lovely as Grable's daughter Iris. (Incidentally, Freeman died very recently -- in May 2014.)

Just as this film is solidly "good" without being over the top spectacular, so is Fox Cinema Archives' DVD-R. The color looks okay but far from ideal. It's probably the best Fox could do, though, as loads of original Fox elements from this era were lost in the 1970s, and in many cases, existing Eastmancolor dupes are the only source material. But Mother Wore Tights looks better than several other Grable titles that have emerged lately, and it's well worth a look.

By Jeremy Arnold