Betty Hutton as WAVE trainee Susie Allison (she also played Susie’s twin sister Rosemary) in the film Here Come the WAVES. The film debuted during Christmas week 1944 and was shot on location at the WAVES Boot Camp at Hunter College in the Bronx.
Tag Archives: 1940s
Disappointment
WAVE Dot Forbes remembers being disappointed when she finally saw her film debut in the movie Here Come the WAVES.
When we got to see the movie, there were a couple of little clips before the movie ever started and that was it! (laughs). I thought, “All of that and in that heat,” it was like 90 degree heat and you’re in wool serge, blue serge, it was just (laughs). Scottie and I shake our heads when we think back. But we did it, because you do what you were told and all.
The still of WAVES marching at Hunter College is from the Paramount picture Here Comes the WAVES. It premiered during Christmas Week, 1944.
Marching, marching, marching
WAVE Dot Forbes was in this sea of women during the filming of Here Come the WAVES at Hunter College in the Bronx.
This was June in New York City. We had to wear our Navy blue uniforms. Serge, wool serge. Marching. And I don’t — I hated the song that Johnny Mercer wrote. I thought I’ll never hear or listen to another one of his songs. We had to sing it over and over and over and over and over. Of course, I realize today what’s involved in editing and they had to do.
The still is from the Paramount picture Here Comes the WAVES. It premiered during Christmas Week, 1944.
On Location
Here Come the WAVES previewed at the WAVES boot camp training facility at Hunter College and at the Naval Air Station in San Diego before the film’s premiere in New York City. The reason? The film was shot on location at the two facilities (as seen in the film still above) with WAVES acting as extras.
Merry Christmas!
May all of your holidays be safe and and happy.
This 1940s-era Christmas card comes from the collection of Liana Galvin.
The Poster
Publicity poster for the Hollywood feature film Here Comes the WAVES, which premiered Christmas week, 1944.
Here Come the WAVES
It was Christmas week, 1944, that the feature film Here Come the WAVES (film still above) premiered in New York, but WAVES got a sneak peek before the premiere.
The film features Betty Hutton, playing twin sisters who join the WAVES, and Bing Crosby, as the celebrity who joins the Navy in order to help the war effort.
It’s a Wonderful Life
The Frank Capra classic was released in 1946, the year after the war ended. But World War II plays a big theme in the film – the Jimmy Stewart character can’t go to war because of a childhood injury, but his brother does and becomes a war hero.
Christmas In Connecticut
The 1945 romance features Barbara Stanwyck as a single-gal New York-dwelling food journalist Elizabeth Lane (think Martha Stewart if Martha Stewart couldn’t cook) and Dennis Morgan as Jefferson Jones, the hero sailor she’ll host for the holidays on “her” Connecticut farm.
Arrange it, are you crazy? Where am I gonna get a farm? I haven’t even got a window box!
Elizabeth Lane learning she’ll be hosting a sailor at “her” farm for Christmas.
I’ll Be Seeing You
This Ginger Rogers/Joseph Cotton film was released on January 5, 1945. In it, a soldier just released from the mental hospital (Cotton) meets a woman on leave from the state penitentiary (Rogers) on a train. She invites him home for the holidays.
Zachary Morgan (Cotton) after singing a Christmas carol with Barbara Marshall’s (Rogers) family:
I haven’t felt so easy in a long time. This is the best Christmas dinner I ever had. Yesterday, I was a stranger here. I mean, I felt like a prisoner inside myself. Now, just to be in a home like this, with people like you, maybe someplace I can come back to next month, or next year…
Hinges of History 