There's No Business Like Show Business [PG]

Molly and Terry Donahue are the biggest stars of the vaudeville stage and their three children prove to love show business as well after they attempt to run away from school. When the kids are grown, they and their parents make up the Five Donahues, the biggest family act on stage. Whilst talent and love for the business flourishes within the family, it also threatens to tear it apart with Stevie leaving to become a preacher, Katherine soon to be married and a mother, and young Timothy falling hard for a rising star. 

Admittedly there really isn’t much going on the ways of plot regarding this film, but it’s still a warm and vibrant classic regardless. One of the shimmering gems from the Golden Age of Hollywood musicals, There’s No Business Like Show Business sparkles with memorable dance sequences and show-stopping numbers including, of course, the title track that I think everyone knows from somewhere or other. 

Molly and Terry Donahue are the biggest stars of the vaudeville stage and their three children prove to love show business as well after they attempt to run away from school. When the kids are grown, they and their parents make up the Five Donahues, the biggest family act on stage. Whilst talent and love for the business flourishes within the family, it also threatens to tear it apart with Stevie leaving to become a preacher, Katherine soon to be married and a mother, and young Timothy falling hard for a rising star. 

Irving Berlin’s classic tracks make for the central muse for this 1950s classic that sits within the realm of Singin’ In the Rain or An American in Paris, though maybe taking a back seat in a camper van. Essentially the film looks at the irresistible pull of show business and then its destructive powers once status within the business is achieved. We see a close-knit family torn apart by a series of events that all take place against the backdrop of a soundstage or a theatre. 

I think there was more potential for the emotional elements of the story to be a lot more, but the way it’s written prevents it from reaching that potential. Whilst I could not help but smile like a twat at the end and hum along with the signature tune, I think with some further character development and relationship establishment, I could have been smiling and crying with happiness. There is something just that bit haphazard and half-hearted about the way things pan out in this flick, as though the writers suddenly had good ideas and threw them in without really thinking about how to flesh them our properly. 

All the performances are great, but I do have to give a special shout out to Donald O’Connor whom I think is a truly underappreciated gem when it comes to the Golden Age. Donald is delightful, charming, naïve, funny, and sometimes a little bit of a dick and it’s great. And he’s just so CUTE! I just want to pluck him off the screen and pop him in my pocket. 

Starring Ethel Merman, Dan Dailey, Johnnie Ray, Mitzi Gaynor, Richard Eastham, Frank McHugh, Hugh O’Brian, Rhys Williams, and Marilyn Monroe, There’s No Business Like Show Business is a warm and vibrant classic in the Golden Age of Hollywood musical canon filled with energetic dance sequences, catchy showtunes, drama, romance, and comedy. It’s fun and warm and, for me, took me back to being five years old watching vibrant classics like Mary Poppins. These kinds of movies, even though many of them I never saw as a child, have that effect on me: they move me in a way that’s all warm and innocent and makes me feel as though I have nothing to worry about. There’s just me and the film.