How to Be Very, Very Popular (1955)

The film starts off as if I was seeing "Some Like it Hot" years before. Two strip-tease dancers witness the shooting death of a Chinese stripper on stage and are pursued by police and the killer alike. Sounds funny and promising but the film soon falls into a trap of utter stupidity.

Bette Grable (too old for the part) and Sheree North are the two fleeing strippers who wind up in a college dormitory and cause mayhem there. North is accidentally hypnotized by Tommy Noonan and spends much of the picture in a hypnotic state. How fortunate for her.

There are two really good performances here by Charles Coburn, as the college dean, more interested in the college getting money than actually providing education and Alice Pearce, as a wacky housemother in the school.

Fred Clark, as the millionaire father, who doesn't know that his son, Orson Bean, has been expelled is given the part of the guy getting hit over the head as he is confused with the killer. Rhys Williams gets the same treatment as North's father.

Bette Grable plays Stormy Tornado. Stormy? This storm blew out to sea. Big-time.