For someone held in regard most often for her untouchable beauty, the divine Dorothy Lamour had a surprisingly eclectic career. She jovially accompanied Bob Hope and Bing Crosby throughout the adventurous Road series while also breaking hearts as a love sick gun moll in Johnny Apollo. She was an endangered woman in the appropriately titled Manhandled and was even further victimized as an elderly shop owner in the opening segment of Creepshow II. Damn kids!!
But she coolly and efficiently turned the tables on the more dominant sex as the advancement minded Lulu Belle in the 1948 film of the same name. Beguiling an up and coming lawyer to assist her in rising above the dusty barroom that she performs in; she soon finds herself bored by the mundane trappings of the life that he can offer. Flirtations with a successful boxer, a night club owner and a distinguished business man soon improve her station. But ever the fickle minded schemer, she soon finds herself uninterested in the successful Broadway productions that she is starring in and, once again, longs for the honest man that she initially led to ruin.
Framed in flashback style and presented as a bit of a crime mystery, Lamour delights throughout the proceedings here. She nicely adds a bit of heart to her creation, evening out the character’s more self-involved edges. One truly believes that she has feelings for her first love, but just can’t help herself from trying to aim for ever glitterier heights.
Horror Hall of Fame:
Besides Creepshow II, Lamour also showed up in Death at Love House, a fun 1976 supernatural television film, as the former rival of a long-deceased Hollywood movie queen.
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