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There's No Business Like Show Business

There's No Business Like Show Business

Music · Comedy · 1954

Molly and Terry Donahue, plus their three children, are The Five Donahues. Youngest son Tim meets hat-check girl Vicky and the family act begins to fall apart.

Movie details

There's No Business Like Show Business

“With Love and Kisses from 20th Century-Fox...Straight from the Shoulder, Right from the Heart Comes...The Musicavalcade and the Personal Story of the Greatest Business on Earth!”

1954 Music · Comedy 1h 58m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

6.4 / 10

7.1K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

67 %

Tomatometer

TMDB

6.1 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

Molly and Terry Donahue, plus their three children, are The Five Donahues. Youngest son Tim meets hat-check girl Vicky and the family act begins to fall apart.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over There's No Business Like Show Business?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Walter Lang

Written by

Phoebe Ephron · Henry Ephron · Lamar Trotti

Ethel Merman

Ethel Merman

Molly Donahue

Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe

Vicky

Mitzi Gaynor

Mitzi Gaynor

Katy Donahue

Dan Dailey

Dan Dailey

Terence Donahue

Donald O'Connor

Donald O'Connor

Tim Donahue

Johnnie Ray

Johnnie Ray

Steve Donahue

Richard Eastham

Richard Eastham

Lew Harris

Court is in session

Put There's No Business Like Show Business on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Sentimental Softie

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Cool Ironist

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.