1h 33min | Musical | 16 April 1948 | Color
Director: Rouben Mamoulian
Stars: Mickey Rooney, Gloria DeHaven, Walter Huston, Frank Morgan, Marilyn Maxwell, Agnes Moorehead.
Charles Walters ... dance director
Watched online; good print.
Well, now I know that I don't need to be a completist about owning all Mamoulian-directed films or musicals.
Musical version of Ah, Wilderness! ('35) (based on the play by Eugene O'Neill). Mickey Rooney played the younger brother in the antecedent film, plays the lead here.
At first it seemed like this would be an Integrated Musical, but the songs devolved into trivial subjects, like The Stanley Steamer. Perhaps they thought this would be another Trolley Song, or Atchison-Topeka, but those had Judy Garland to put them over. Warren & Blaine wrote the songs, and some of the Freed "unit" (Hayton & Salinger) produced this.
Agnes Moorehead is the love interest for Frank Morgan, the ne'er do well uncle who has an alcohol problem; she has little to do. MR has a drunken night to help him come of age.
I don't like MR, and GD doesn't impress me, so WH and AM would have needed bigger roles to make me like this. I don't remember dancing, so CW as choreographer didn't help either.
MGM, dir. Mamoulian; 6-
