Moon Over Miami is one of the best Fox musicals of the 1940s! The plot is simple - two beautiful (but broke) sisters go to Miami in search of rich husbands. They pretend to be rich so the men don't suspect they are gold diggers. Betty Grable and Carole Landis play the sisters and they both give fabulous performances. Charlotte Greenwood, Jack Haley, Don Ameche, Robert Cummings, and Cobina Wright round out the talented cast. The songs in Moon Over Miami are fun and catchy - You Started Something, Kindergarten Conga, What Can I Do For You. The costumes are gorgeous and the cast looks amazing filmed in Technicolor. Carole Landis was without a doubt one of the most beautiful women of the 1940s!! Moon Over Miami is one of my favorite movies and everyone who loves musicals should enjoy it.

Having just been to Miami for the first time in my life, I finally decided to check out this Betty Grable musical from 20th Century-Fox that took place and was partly filmed there after having taped it from AMC 10 years ago. The flimsy plot about gold diggers is a bit longish but many entertaining musical numbers and some humor does put it over on me quite smoothly. Certainly the cast, which includes Robert Cummings, Don Ameche, Carole Landis, Charlotte Greenwood, Jack Haley, and especially Ms. Grable are very charming here with wonderful Technicolor photography and melodically tuneful songs by Ralph Ranger and Leo Robin. In short, Moon Over Miami was just an entertaining piece of fluff that went over well for audiences that survived the Depression and was just about to enter World War II...

This wonderful movie is filled with great songs and dance numbers featuring Betty Grable at her absolute best. She dances and sings beautifully...and after watching this movie (I've seen it at least 50 times) I can never stop singing "You Started Something". Both Don Ameche and Robert Cummings are also perfectly cast in their light romantic and debonair roles. As stand-outs though you can't compete with Charlotte Greenwood (who could lift her legs higher than anyone from her generation) and Jack Haley who's comic mugging for the camera never fails to make me laugh. The movies colors and gowns are everything you could want and then some of a great Hollywood Musical. The sets, too, are the stuff Hollywood Dreams are made of...the height of chic. I love watching this movie with Spring Time in the Rockies and Down Argentine Way for a full on Betty Grable Musical Film Fest.

While MGM is remembered as the `studio for musicals,' it should be remembered that most MGM musicals prior to `The Wizard of OZ' were pretty horrible. Even after `OZ' (a flop in its first release), MGM cranked out its musicals on the cheap, usually in Black and White, until about 1944, when upstart Samuel Goldwyn studios started cranking out the Technicolor Danny Kaye's that MGM relented and began producing good, sometimes great color musicals. While Columbia, Paramount, Warner Bros and (especially) RKO regularly made wonderful musicals, until 1944, only 20th Century-Fox almost always made them in Technicolor. `Moon Over Miami' is one of these, and its pluses and minuses pretty much parallel those of the other Fox musicals.Let's start with the minuses, since there are far more of them. The plot, even for a musical, is pretty shopworn and threadbare (of course, this didn't stop Fox from using it again several times). Two sisters (Betty Grable, Carole Landis) and their aunt (Charlotte Greenwood) head to Miami with the goal of using their small inheritance to trap a millionaire husband for Grable. Landis poses as Grable's secretary and Greenwood as Grable's maid. Once settled into luxury resort, Grable maneuvers herself into courtships with not one, but two, millionaires (Robert Cummings and Don Ameche). Cummings is silly, as usual; Ameche struggles the best he can with a unbelievable role. For example, upon first meeting Grable, Ameche (apparently suffering from a hangover and lack of sleep), shows no interest in Grable, and is surly and insulting to boot. A nanosecond later, Ameche, wide awake and clear head, is dancing with Grable, singing a laughingly terrible love song. In fact, all the songs in `Moon Over Miami' are terrible. That this film is over 60 years old is no excuse. Even some musicals with no good songs at least had good dancing. The dancing on display in `Moon Over Miami' is stagey. While beautiful, Landis lacks the charm and animation to carry her pivotal role as Grable's sister.Now the pluses. Even playing her stock character, Charlotte Greenwood is always fun. As a dancer, she had one trick: kicking her legs nearly to her shoulder, SIDEWAYS. That never ceases to amaze me. The costumes and location scenery are gorgeous as is the Technicolor. Nevertheless, the best thing about a Betty Grable musical has ALWAYS been Betty Grable. Grable was for the `big' boys what Shirley Temple was for the `little boys'. More than any other actress of her generation, Grable could be pretty, spunky, charming, sensuous, wholesome, sexy AND accessible (i.e., the `girl next door'). While lacking the singing or dancing talents of Betty Hutton, Judy Garland or Ginger Rogers, Grable also lacked Hutton's bombast, Garland's neurosis and Rogers' cynicism. I endured this movie, successfully fighting every urge to `fast forward' just to watch Betty Grable.I recommend this movie to the following types of people, only:o Older couples who stubbornly believe `They don't make ‘em like THAT anymore.' o Younger people who've never seen Technicolor except in "The Wizard of OZ." o Present or potential fans of Betty Grable; I hope there will be a growing number of the latter.