THREE LITTLE WORDS--Was it really Helen Kane?

[Ray Pointer]

Over the weekend, while re-arranging four draws of files, I was playing the six CD set of THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT, the audio history of MGM musicals; some based on the two compilation features. This time hearing "I Wanna Be Loved By You" from THREE LITTLE WORDS, it sounded like Mae Questel and NOT Helen Kane, the song's originator. In the film, THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT, Debbie Reynolds' narration says that MGM brought in Helen Kane to sing the song that she lip synced to. But having heard several recordings of Helen Kane, it does not sound like her, allowing for 25 years of maturity. There is a lot of Questel's qualities in the recording that I've not heard on Kane's records made in the 20s. The one source who might have helped was Miles Kreuger,since he knows a great deal about the career of Helen Kane. But he was not in when I called to discuss this. I shall try again. But it is a curious matter since the song has passed on to being identified with Marilyn Monroe, and through her to BETTY BOOP, who started out as a Helen Kane caricature. Life is ironic!:betty:

[musicradio77]

Over the weekend, while re-arranging four draws of files, I was playing the six CD set of THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT, the audio history of MGM musicals; some based on the two compilation features. This time hearing "I Wanna Be Loved By You" from THREE LITTLE WORDS, it sounded like Mae Questel and NOT Helen Kane, the song's originator. In the film, THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT, Debbie Reynolds' narration says that MGM brought in Helen Kane to sing the song that she lip synced to. But having heard several recordings of Helen Kane, it does not sound like her, allowing for 25 years of maturity. There is a lot of Questel's qualities in the recording that I've not heard on Kane's records made in the 20s. The one source who might have helped was Miles Krueger,since he knows a great deal about the career of Helen Kane. But he was not in when I called to discuss this. I shall try again. But it is a curious matter since the song has passed on to being identified with Marilyn Monroe, and through her to BETTY BOOP, who started out as a Helen Kane caricature. Life is ironic!:betty:

I know that, I've heard that song "I Wanna Be Loved By You" at the end of John Gary's album "That's the Way It Was", she sounded a lot like Mae Questel where she did the voice for Betty Boop. She later voiced for Olive Oyl and Little Audrey. That's what I've heard that song.

[Ray Pointer]

Speaking with Miles Kreuger of The Institute of the American Musical, I was assured that it was indeed Helen Kane singing the vocal for "I Wanna Be Loved by You" in THREE LITTLE WORDS. She was born in The Bronx on August 4, 1903, later married Joseph Kane, and was married two times afterward. Following her loss of the 1934 lawsuit over the Betty Boop characterizion, she had done no film work until she was called in by MGM for her vocal work in THREE LITTLE WORDS in 1950. For all those years until her death on September 26, 1966, she was a resident of Jackson Hts, New York, doing some occasional stage work in New York.