Release Date: August 5, 1943 | Production Date: February - April 1943 | Color: Black & White Running Time: 76 minutes | Studio: Paramount Pictures
PRINCIPAL CAST
Bob Hope
as "Jerry Walker"
Betty Hutton
as "Winnie Porter"
Zasu Pitts
as "Cornelia Figeson"
Phyllis Povah
as "Nancy Collister"
Dave Willock
as "Barney Hilliard"
Eve Arden
as "Maggie Watson"
Cully Richards
as "Frankie Burns"
Marjorie Weaver
as "Jean Blanchard"
Dona Drake
as "Muriel"
Raymond Walburn
as "Julian Watson"
Andrew Tombes
as "Judge Henry Pigeon"
Arthur Loft
as "George Collister"
Joe Sawyer
as "Sergeant Wiggins"
Grace Hayle
as "Mrs. Wigglesworth"
Evelyn Dockson
as "Mrs. Taylor"
CREW
Screen Play by Harry Tugend
Based on a musical play by
Dorothy Fields, Herbert Fields and Cole Porter
Suggested by a play by
Norma Mitchell and Russell G. Medcraft
Songs by
Cole Porter
Music Direction
Robert Emmett Dolan
Vocal Arrangements
Joseph J. Lilley
Music Assistant
Arthur Franklin
Dances Staged by
Seymour Felix
Director of Photography
Lionel Lindon, A.S.C.
Art Direction
Hans Dreier and Earl Hedrick
Special Photography Effects
Gordon Jennings, A.S.C.
Process Photography
Farciot Edouart, A.S.C.
Edited by
Paul Weatherwax
Costumes
Edith Head
Makeup Artist
Wally Westmore
Sound Recording
Hugo Grenzbach and Don Johnson
Set Decoration
Ray Moyer
Associate Producer
Fred Kohlmar
Directed by
Sidney Lanfield
PUBLICITY IMAGES AND STILLS
POSTERS AND ADVERTISEMENTS
LOBBY CARDS
POLLS
SYNOPSIS
During World War II, Winnie Potter (Betty Hutton) gets angry at her fiancé, Jerry Walker (Bob Hope), when he sneaks sweets to her clients at a fat reducing farm, the strict diet of which includes plenty of milk. Jerry, a private in the Army, has delayed their wedding for eight weeks because he is always getting into trouble.
As he is returning to Camp Arthur, three clients of the farm, Cornelia Pigeon (Zasu Pitts), Nancy Collister (Phyllis Povah) and Maggie Watson (Eve Arden), try to interest him in getting two other soldiers to become their dates for a day. All three women suspect that their husbands are not really away on a fishing trip, but are philandering behind their backs, and decide that making them jealous is the best revenge. Jerry rejects the matrons' offer, and then accidentally crashes his jeep through the canteen wall at the camp.
After Sergeant Wiggins (Joe Sawyer) tells him that he has to come up with the money to pay off the damages or spend six months on guard duty, Jerry meets with Cornelia, Nancy and Maggie again and agrees to meet them at Cornelia's Southhampton, Long Island, home on Sunday. He then cancels his Sunday wedding plans with Winnie, and arranges with his best buddies, Frankie Burns (Cully Richards) and Barney Hilliard (Dave Willock), to join him on Sunday, intending to pay them twenty dollars out of the $300 the women are to give him.
In order to slip out of camp, Jerry fakes a head injury while working on the jeep. Winnie, meanwhile, has figured out that Jerry is not going on special assignment, as he told her, but is having a rendezvous with the matrons. Frankie and Barney, who have been told they are being fixed up with real beauties, are shocked when they meet the matrons, and try to renege on the deal, but Jerry insists they remain. Terrified of any physical contact with the women, the three men become inseparable. Maggie then demands the return of her $50 deposit, which Jerry has already given to Winnie, but she is interrupted when Winnie arrives with Muriel (Dona Drake) and Jean (Marjorie Weaver), Frankie and Barney's girl friends. The angry girl friends break off all relations with the soldiers, who decide that they may as well keep their deal with the matrons.
Not long after, the husbands arrive with their dates, who quickly exit after the wives make their presence known. After several arguments, Jerry, Frankie and Barney go to the local nightclub with Maggie, Cornelia and Nancy. Winnie, Muriel, Jean and the husbands decide to do the same, and each group tries to outdo each other in making their mates jealous. When Jerry discovers Sergeant Wiggins at the booth next to his, he pretends that his head injury has caused insanity, which is why he never made it to the Army hospital.
Jerry, Frankie and Barney then escape in a rowboat, intending to row across the sound to the camp, but a periscope shoots up through their boat and they are unexpectedly affixed to a German submarine. When the German commander realizes he has three Americans on board, he heads the submarine for open ocean, but Jerry fools him into thinking he is headed for the shore by holding a mirror in front of the periscope lens. The commander turns the submarine around and heads for shore. The submarine crashes on the beach, and the Germans spies are captured.
A year later, Jerry is once again in the brig for causing trouble, and his patient wife Winnie bids him a cheerful farewell with their baby son in her arms.
"Let's Face It" is based on the Cole Porter musical of the same name, which in turn is based on the stage play "The Cradle Snatchers" by Russell G. Medcraft and Norma Mitchell.
Other films based on Medcraft and Mitchell's play are Fox's 1927 film "The Cradle Snatchers", directed by Howard Hawks and starring Louise Fazenda and J. Farrell MacDonald; and Fox's 1929 film "Why Leave Home?", directed by Raymond Cannon and starring Sue Carol and Nick Stuart.
Paramount had Betty's platinum blonde hair dyed darker for her role in "Let's Face It" to give her a slightly more "authoratative, serious look."
Betty enjoyed the outfits Edith Head designed for her role in "Let's Face It" so much that she bought them for her own personal wear.
Betty and Bob Hope reportedly started writing a musical comedy during the filming of "Let's Face It," but it remained incomplete after Bob took off on a tour of Army camps.
Although Danny Dare was slated to choreograph a dance for Betty and Bob Hope, only Seymour Felix is credited on the screen for choreography.
In the original script of "Let's Face It," there were several scenes showing actors enjoying fulsome meals. They were deleted when rationing hit the country.