There's No Business Like Show Business

Irving Berlin's There's No Business Like Show Business is a 1955 20th Century-Fox musical-comedy-drama film directed by Walter Lang. It stars an ensemble cast, consisting of Ethel Merman, Dan Dailey, Donald O'Connor, Mitzi Gaynor, Marilyn Monroe, Johnnie Ray, and Richard Eastham.

The title is borrowed from the famous song in the stage musical (and MGM film) Annie Get Your Gun. The screenplay was written by Phoebe Ephron and Henry Ephron, based on a story by Lamar Trotti; and the movie was Fox's first musical in CinemaScope and DeLuxe Color.

Donald O'Connor later called the film the best picture he ever made.

Plot
In 1919, Terence Donahue and his wife Molly are a husband-and-wife vaudeville team known as the Donahues, pursue both a stable family life as well as professional success. Their children, Steve, Katy, and Tim, join the act one by one, and their act eventually becomes the Five Donahues. The family is a success and soon hit the top. One night after a show, a worried Molly and Terry return home alone while Katy goes out on a date, Steve takes a walk, and the womanizing Tim goes out with an older chorus girl. Katy and Tim both wind up at a nightclub where Tim teases Victoria Hoffman. Vicky forgets Tim's wisecracks, however, when Eddie Dugan, her agent, informs her that he has persuaded famed producer, Lew Harris, to visit the club. With the help of her co-workers, Vicky gets onstage and impresses Lew and Tim with her singing. Backstage, Vicky learns that Tim is one of the well known Donahues but quickly dismisses him in order to talk business with Harris.

Back at the Donahue home, Steve informs his family that he wants to become a priest. Terry is distraught over his son's decision, but their discussion is interrupted by the appearance of Tim, who got drunk after he was dismissed by Vicky.

After Steve leaves for seminary school, the rechristened Four Donahues accept an engagement in Miami. Upon arrival, Tim is thrilled to find that Hoffman, now known as Vicky Parker, is also appearing there; however she is performing a considerably more sensual version of Heat Wave, the same number as the family. After falling in complete lust with Vicky's performance at rehearsal, Tim gives his approval for her to perform the number without checking with the family beforehand.

Katy begins dating Charlie Gibbs, the show's tall and spare lyricist, and Tim continues dating Vicky. After a misunderstanding over a broken dinner date with Vicky, Tim goes out drinking with a chorus girl and gets in a car accident. Molly and Terry learn of the accident just hours before opening night of the show for which he, Vicky and Katy have been rehearsing, and Terry goes down to the hospital to confront Tim about his conduct. Tim rebuffs the advice, whereupon Terry slaps him across the face and storms out. The next day, Terry and Molly go back to the hospital to pick up Tim but discover that he has vanished, leaving behind a note apologizing for his behavior. Molly and Terry are both heartbroken but decide to take action.

Molly convinces Lew that, while she'd have to fake the dancing, a feat with which she's been getting away for years, she can go on in Tim's place, having been at rehearsal every night for months. Steve has been called up into the Army as a chaplain and been sent to Europe where his whereabouts are also unknown. Weeks later, the show is a resounding success, but Terry is still despondent over the loss of Tim. After dropping Molly off at the theatre to perform that night, he disappears on the road in a quest for his son, which understandably devastates a very high-strung Molly, having all three of the men in her life with their whereabouts now unknown.

Months later at a benefit show for the closing night of the famed Hippodrome Theatre in New York, Katy, who has since become close friends with Vicky, arranges for her to share a dressing room with her mother to teach her a very well-deserved lesson. Seeing through her daughter's manipulation and highly annoyed therewith, Molly begins to pack up and head upstairs for some peace and quiet, however, Katy not only tells her mother that she'll be doing nothing of the kind, but that she needs to apologize to Vicky for snubbing her at every turn for the past year. Highly incensed at the very idea, she demands to know why, and Katy calmly tells her that what happened to Tim, he brought it on all by himself. Seeing the truth about her youngest son, Molly relents and has a long talk with Vicky, who assures her that she never did play around on Tim and that she's loved him all along. They make up and Vicky takes her place backstage. Steve comes in unexpectedly, they share a hug, and Molly admits that she was pretty hardheaded too and never gave Vicky the proper chance she deserved.

As Molly performs the title song, Steve and Katy watch from the wings; then Tim, wearing a US Navy uniform, appears behind them. Thrilled to be reunited, the Five Donahues, with Vicky holding tightly onto Tim's hand, all go onstage and happily reprise a short encore of their version of "Alexander's Ragtime Band" before reprising with a finale of the title song.

Cast

 * Ethel Merman as Molly Donahue
 * Donald O'Connor as Tim Donahue
 * Marilyn Monroe as Victoria Hoffman
 * Dan Dailey as Terence Donahue
 * Johnnie Ray as Steve Donahue
 * Mitzi Gaynor as Katy Donahue
 * Richard Eastham as Lew Harris
 * Hugh O'Brian as Charles Gibbs
 * Frank McHugh as Eddie Dugan
 * Rhys Williams as Father Dineen
 * Lee Patrick as Marge
 * Eve Miller as Hatcheck Girl
 * Robin Raymond as Lilliam Sawyer