Pin Up Girl (film)
Pin Up Girl is a 1944 20th Century Fox Technicolor musical romantic comedy motion picture starring Betty Grable, John Harvey, Martha Raye, and Joe E. Brown.
Directed by H. Bruce Humberstone and produced by William LeBaron, the screenplay was adapted by Robert Ellis, Helen Logan and Earl Baldwin based on a short story titled Imagine Us! (1942) by Libbie Block.
Pin Up Girl capitalized on Grable's iconic pin-up status during World War II, even using her famous swimsuit photo in portions of the movie.
Plot
Lorry Jones (Betty Grable) is working as a hostess at the local USO canteen in "Missoula, Missouri," where she performs as a singer and signs photographs of herself for adoring soldiers.
It is her job to keep them happy and routinely accept every marriage proposal. One of her suitors, Marine Sergeant George Davis (Roger Clark), does not realize she has no real intention of marrying him.
Meanwhile, Lorry and her best friend, Kay Pritchett (Dorothea Kent), have accepted jobs as stenographers in Washington, D.C., but they tell the soldiers that they are going on a USO tour.
Pin-up model
A pin-up model (known as a pin-up girl for a female and less commonly male pin-up for a male) is a model whose mass-produced pictures see wide appeal as popular culture. Pin-ups are intended for informal display, i.e. meant to be "pinned-up" on a wall. Pin-up models may be glamour models, fashion models, or actors.
These pictures are also sometimes known as cheesecake photos.
The term pin-up may refer to drawings, paintings, and other illustrations as well as photographs (see the list of pin-up artists). The term was first attested to in English in 1941; however, the practice is documented back at least to the 1890s.
The pin-up images could be cut out of magazines or newspapers, or on a postcard or lithograph. Such pictures often appear on wall or desk calendars. Posters of pin-ups were mass-produced and became popular from the mid 20th century.
Male pin-ups were less common than their female counterparts throughout the 20th century, although a market for homoerotica has always existed as well as pictures of popular male celebrities targeted at women or girls. Examples include James Dean and Jim Morrison.
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