Five Jane Powell Films

Time to run that marathon…

Jane Powell was born Suzanne Lorraine Burce on April 1, 1929 in Portland, Oregon, and her story echoes that of many of her contemporaries: Her parents wanted her to be the next Shirley Temple.

As such, Suzanne was pressed into singing lessons starting at age five. At fourteen, Suzanne won a radio contest which led to an audition at MGM and then a seven-year contract.

Did this make Suzanne happy? Not in the slightest. By all accounts, the only thing she could think about was that she would miss being a normal teenager going to high school, and she hated the thought of her friends seeing her as uppity.

Stardom and her parents’ ambitions called, though, and Suzanne was off to MGM, going to school on the lot in between her training sessions. Her first film, Song Of the Open Road, is where she got her stage name, and the studio let her know when one of its employees called Suzanne’s house and asked for Jane Powell. Suzanne thought at first that whoever it was had called a wrong number.

As Jane Powell, Suzanne delighted audiences with her crystal-clear coloratura soprano and sunny disposition. It might even be said that she was Doris Day before Doris Day, only with a dash of Judy Garland: Jane Powell was expected to play ingenue roles even when she had reached adulthood. Like Judy, Powell found this frustrating, but also like Judy, she soldiered on.

Powell’s time at MGM lasted until 1955, when she was let go by a changing studio and changing Hollywood. After making one more movie at RKO, Powell essentially retired from the big screen, transferring to the small one, where she would make guest appearances and other roles in various shows and movies. I, for one, remember seeing her on Murder She Wrote and The Love Boat, for instance, and she was always delightful. She also seemed to be a very grounded person for the most part, making no bones about the passage of time, and gracefully dialed back her singing once age started to catch up with her.

Jane Powell’s last acting credit was a 2002 episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, in which she played a senile elderly lady named Bess Sherman who’s suffering from dementia and elder abuse. After that, Powell lived quietly in Connecticut with her fifth and last husband, Dickie Moore, passing away in 2021 at the age of 92.

For all she was so prolific, her TV work seems the most well-known to audiences today, at least to Gens X, Y, and older, and up until now I had only seen two of Powell’s movies: Royal Wedding and A Date With Judy. Well, and this deleted scene from 1946’s Holiday In Mexico:

So yeah, I’ve been eager to delve a little more into Powell’s filmography, and here’s what I’ve seen so far. Incidentally, three of the five movies on this list feature Vic Damone, who made his film debut in Rich Young and Pretty. Onward…

Delightfully Dangerous (1945)

Sherry Williams is a music student at a boarding school and longs to see her older sister, Josephine, who she thinks is on the stage in New York. Problem is, Jo is very cryptic about what show she’s in and where she performs, so during school holiday Jo heads up to New York and is horrified to discover Josephine is a famous burlesque singer on the line of Gypsy Rose Lee.

This was Jane Powell’s second film. Although she puts in a charming performance, the movie is almost painfully predictable, as a lot of the runtime is taken up by various stage numbers, more than one of which include mustachioed men mouthing song lyrics. We all have to start somewhere, though.

Three Daring Daughters (1948)

Jane plays Tess Morgan, the oldest of three daughters who are left at home when their mother, Louise goes on a long cruise to rest and relax. The girls have the idea that their mother is miserable over their father divorcing her, and set about to get him back. Meanwhile, Mom is being courted on board ship by Jose Iturbi, who plays himself, and the usual intrigue ensues. It’s kind of like The Parent Trap except that the parents are seldom seen together and no sparks fly. Well, not the right kind, anyway.

The movie’s plot is incredibly skimpy, but casting Jane Powell as Jeanette MacDonald’s daughter is a pretty genius move, given their vocal similarities. Too bad the movie doesn’t have much to offer beyond some great music.

Rich, Young and Pretty (1951)

Jane Powell is Elizabeth Rogers, a young lady from Texas who goes to Paris with her dad, Jim for a month while he makes a big, prestigious speech for American officials overseas. The two of them have a wonderful time clubhopping and seeing the sights, but Jim is concerned Elizabeth will meet her estranged mother in Paris. Naturally, Elizabeth does just that. She also meets Andre, a young American living in Paris, and forgets all about Bob, the fellow she left behind in Texas.

Like Three Daring Daughters, the plot of the film is extremely thin but a lot of the music is fairly decent and fun. Among other novelties, Rich, Young and Pretty is probably the only movie to feature “Deep In the Heart Of Texas” translated into French. Sort of.

Athena (1954)

Jane plays Athena, one of seven Mulvane daughters and part of what appears to be a group that’s part-family, part cult, seemingly on the line of Buddhafield, except that those folks got to eat meat. Athena’s family is health-conscious to a fault, they’re very much into astrology and numerology, and among their methods, bodybuilders spend hours laying under sheets for some reason.

However, even this stringent, all-natural lifestyle has its limits, such as when Debbie Reynolds as Minerva sings, “Imagine you’re a weevil, an old boll weevil. Suppose the field of cotton is me. If you came along and settled down in it, fetch the DDT.” Yes, those are actual lines from one of the songs.

There’s no way around it: This movie is kinda weird and a little boring. On the other hand, we get to see a Mr. Universe contest, which is sort of cool in an awkward way.

Hit the Deck (1955)

This cute MGM tour-de-force is about three sailors on leave who get in trouble for beating up a lecherous producer. He has it coming. He also happens to be putting on a show. Jane plays Susan Smith, the sister of Danny, one of the sailors. It wasn’t the only time she and Tamblyn would play brother and sister, either, because as we all know they had also starred together in Seven Brides For Seven Brothers. And yes, Debbie Reynolds is back.

Hit the Deck was hampered by bad timing. It was the last movie Powell would make for MGM, as musicals were suddenly out of fashion, not to mention Powell’s affair with Gene Nelson was a huge scandal. Time has been kind, of course, because almost seventy years after the fact, Hit the Deck is a fun, exuberant romp.

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Yep, Jane, Vic and Debbie had loads of shared memories at MGM. Anywhoo…

What stood out to me from perusing these five films is what probably stands out to a lot of people, and that is Powell’s characters not seeming to change very much. She’s always cheerful, although sparky, but essentially every movie is pretty similar. Maybe it’s because I watched more than one of these films back to back, but who knows.

Either way, it was still fun learning more about Jane Powell and I’m curious to see more of her movies.

For more marathon stars, please see Crystal at In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood, Virginie at The Wonderful World of Cinema, and Samantha at Musings of A Classic Film Addict. Thanks for hosting, ladies–this was fun! Thanks for reading, all, and I hope to see you on Tuesday for another installment of “During World War Two…”

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Delightfully Dangerous (DVD and streaming), Three Daring Daughters (DVD), Rich, Young and Pretty (DVD), Athena (DVD and Blu-ray) and Hit the Deck (DVD and Blu-ray) are available to own from Amazon.

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