There's No Business Like Show Business is a 20th Century Fox film that was released on December 16, 1954. The title is borrowed from the famous song in the musical Annie Get Your Gun. It stars Ethel Merman, Donald O'Connor, Marilyn Monroe, Dan Dailey, Mitzi Gaynor, and Johnnie Ray. It was directed by Walter Lang and written by Lamar Trotti (story) and Phoebe Ephron and Henry Ephron. The movie was Ethel Merman's first film in widescreen; it was filmed in CinemaScope.
The film depicts the traveling, singing and dancing Donahue Family, with Merman and Dailey as the parents, and O'Connor, Ray, and Gaynor as their adult children. It proved to be a disappointment both commercially and critically , but it remains the only film in which Merman sings that song (although she did reprise it in the 1967 television version of "Annie Get Your Gun") "Show Business" was an extremely expensive movie. It did not make back its cost , but it did attract a considerable audience.
Monroe did not want to make this film but agreed after Fox promised her the lead in Billy Wilder's screen version of the Broadway hit, The Seven Year Itch.
Molly and Terry Donahue, plus their three children, are The Five Donahues. Son Tim meets hat-check girl Vicky and the family act begins to fall apart. Written by Ed Stephan
