The I Don't Care Girl (1953)

I didn't like the ending in this 1953 entertaining movie. Nice seeing David Wayne attempting a song and dance routine. Even though he mouthed the words, he got through it nicely.The film tells the story of the making of a film based on Broadway luminary Eva Tanguay.The dances and the songs centered around the theme of I don't care are marvelously staged.Wayne appears in and out of the film and his telephone drunk scene was so similar to when he gave up Susan Hayward (Jane Froman) to Rory Calhoun via the phone again the year before in "With A Song in My Heart."The film tells of different men in her life telling her story with differences that seem to come all together at the end.

It doesn't appear that this film is anymore a true biopic of performer Eva Tanguay than most biopics from the 1930s through 1950s were. But, despite having only a smattering of accuracy in it, some of Mitzi Gaynor's dance routines are fantastic.I had never even heard of Eva Tanguay, although I was vaguely familiar with the old song "I Don't Care". It's interesting to read her bio on Wikipedia...preferably before you watch the film; in fact, the bio may be more entertaining than the film.While far from her best film, Mitzi Gaynor shines here, although I doubt production numbers at the turn of the century were this lavish.Oscar Levant is here as a fellow performer. He seems more ill-at-ease here than usually; this just wasn't the right kind of part for him.David Wayne is surprisingly good as a song and dance man who, at one time, teamed with Tanguay. Bob Graham is a singer with his eye on Tanguay...but my reaction was Bob who? It's interesting to see George Jessel, as Himself, as the producer of the very film you're watching.A rather disappointing outing.

It begins, even before the credits, with an onstage production number in which Mitzi, as famed vaudevillian Eva Tanguay, emerges hoarse and uncertain onstage, thus forcing the stage manager to ring down the curtain. AND IT NEVER COMES BACK TO THIS. That's how ineptly cut this Fox backstager is, leaving a major plot thread unacknowledged for the next 78 minutes. Along the way we get some clichéd show-must-go-on situations, the unappealing Oscar Levant (especially unappealing when deprived of good dialog, which Comden and Green provided him the same year in "The Band Wagon") plunking away on some classical piano, David Wayne in what first appears to be the leading-man role but turns into an inconsequential supporting part, the pleasant-voiced Bob Graham as Mitzi's love interest, George Jessel playing himself pretending to be a nice man, and several big, big production numbers. These have nothing to do with the vaudeville milieu and are set to undistinguished music, but the color's great, and Gwen Verdon gets to do some sinuous Jack Cole choreography in one of them. The whole thing's framed in a desperate-looking "Citizen Kane" conceit, as two studio boys are exhorted by Jessel to "come up with the REAL Eva Tanguay story," but the movie never wanders anywhere near the real Eva Tanguay story -- maybe it just wasn't that interesting. Worth looking at for the blazing Technicolor, the dances, and Mitzi, who's never less than professional, and never more.

I understand that The I Don't Care Girl was severely cut by Daryl F Zannuck which was his usual practice, despite this Mitzi showed what a Great talent she was, unlike other great female dancers of the time Mitzi was set apart because she had personality, I also think Mitzi was at the wrong studio and totally wasted in Hollywood, although she was'nt wasted in Las Vegas where she was the top box office star for years, and later her great tv shows.