Betty Hutton: Last News

Guy Lodge Film Critic Quick, silly and lent weight only by the costume department’s copious wigs and furs, “The Crime Is Mine” finds tireless French auteur François Ozon in the playful period pastiche mode of “Potiche” and “8 Women.” It’s a film less about any frenetic onscreen shenanigans as it is about its own mood board of sartorial and cinematic reference points — Jean Renoir, Billy Wilder, some vintage Chanel — and as such it slips down as fizzily and forgettably as a bottle of off-brand sparkling wine. This story of an aspiring stage star standing trial for a top impresario’s murder (and making the most of her moment in the tabloid flashbulbs) may be based on a nearly 90-year-old play, but for those versed more in Hollywood and Broadway than in French theater, Ozon’s adaptation resembles a kind of diva fanfic: What if Roxie Hart went up against Norma Desmond, except in rollicking 1930s Paris? As it happens, Georges Berr and Louis Verneuil’s 1934 comedy “Mon crime” has twice been adapted into Hollywood screwball romps: 1937’s Carole Lombard vehicle “True Confession” and the lesser 1946 remake “Cross My Heart,” starring Betty Hutton.

JUST IN: Howard Keel accused of being 'terrible' to Betty Hutton on setGarland claimed an Oscar for her turn in the film, but by then was in the throes of addiction, experiencing severe mood swings, dependency on alcohol and bouts of depression. Garland's ex-husband, Sid Luft, discussed what it was like for the star on the set of the Wizard of Oz, and made a series of startling revelations about her time there. In 2005, Luft wrote that the then-child star was targeted by other actors on set, including those who performed as the film's munchkins.