1h 56min | Comedy, Music, Romance | 19 April 1947
Director: Roy Del Ruth
Stars: Don DeFore, Ann Harding, Charles Ruggles, Victor Moore, Gale Storm, Grant Mitchell, Edward Brophy, Alan Hale Jr.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039502/
Only 4 songs performed. Is this genre Music because GS goes to work in a Music store? I certainly wouldn't have thought to assign either Music/al genre here. Soundtracks does not say GS was dubbed, but she doesn't sound the way I expect when singing.
The idea of converting old army barracks into civilian housing by collecting cash and labor from ex-GIs rather echoes Something for the Boys (1944), although that was the primary plot there. Here the primary plot is an accumulated group of strangers occupying a mansion boarded up for the season.
Reasons I find this charming:
- Victor Moore in general
- VM's justifications for occupying the house, how to make money when you must, the need for responsibility even though he's avoided it.
- DD. He becomes rather stocky soon; now he's slender, young and handsome, befitting a returning vet. And he is charming, not belligerent, with GS, although he is antagonistic toward authorities when he's evicted from his home.
- CR, always charming (that voice!), is a self-made tycoon, who learns the value of his pre-wealth mentalities.
- Ann Harding brings a solid presence: dignified yet warm. I think I like her in everything I've seen. She's in the first version of Holiday ('30) in the Katharine Hepburn role; I'd love to see that.
- Alan Hale Jr. is young and built; his smile lights a room.
- EB is always welcome; here as a security cop with a heavy Brooklyn/Bronx accent/speech pattern.
- GS is young and sweet but feisty as the rich daughter who wants to be loved for herself.
Roy Del Ruth Prod., distr. Allied Artists Pictures, dir. Del Ruth; 7
