The Damndest Things: Betty Hutton in "Hamlet"

Imagine my reaction. I'd just finished watching nearly three rigorous hours worth of Palermo Oder Wolfsburg (about which more later), and when I ejected the disc and switched back to cable, this was what I saw. It's a scene from John Farrow's Red, Hot and Blue, and TCM must have known that people would react as I did, because MoviesOnTCM has the clip available on YouTube. Like a lot of people, I suppose, I'd only seen Betty Hutton in action in Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth, not in one of her own star vehicles. though I'd heard some hair-raising accounts of her work. Now here's this. My first impulse was to call her a female Danny Kaye, but that's not really fair, since she got into movies first. Actually, a female Curly Howard may be more like it from the way this finishes. In any event, it's one of The Damndest Things I've ever seen, and possibly the first in a series of such things I may post here. Take it away, Betty.