I wouldn't argue with anyone who said that Springtime in the Rockies might just be Betty Grable's best film. It certainly has a lot going for it.
The plot's a skimpy one as these types of films are. Betty's in love with her act partner John Payne who says he reciprocates, but can't get pinned down for marriage. After a performance in their show, she and Payne get into one fight too many and she takes off for an engagement with her former partner Cesar Romero in a resort on the shore of Lake Louise in those beautiful Canadian Rockies.
No one got near Lake Louise from 20th Century Fox. A few establishing shots of the lake with the mountains behind are all you see. Of course John Payne chases after her with some mixed motives. He wants to marry her, but he also wants her for a new show. He takes his own scenic route to Lake Louise, flying under his own power as well as by plane and finds when he both arrives and sobers up he's hired himself a secretary in Carmen Miranda and a valet in Edward Everett Horton.
Betty gets to make her first appearance on screen with her new husband, Harry James and his orchestra. Just prior and during World War II was the era of the big bands and all the studios tried to sign them up and shoe horn them into films. It was an easy fit in this case for Harry James.
Especially with a score from Harry Warren and Mack Gordon who provided James with one of his biggest hits. I Had The Craziest Dream. Played by the band with inimitable James trumpet and sung beautifully by Helen Forrest this was one of the biggest song hits of the World War II years. It still plays beautifully today.
Carmen Miranda does a couple of numbers in her unique style, you haven't lived until you've heard her do Chattanooga Choo Choo in Portugese. And in this wonderful cast in a small role is Jackie Gleason as Payne's agent. It's sad that in this wonderful cast, Gleason had a most nondescript part that shows absolutely nothing of his comic abilities.
There's nothing deep about Springtime in the Rockies, it's just fabulous entertainment with a cast you could never assemble like this today.
