Dorothy Kingsley got hold of some Industrial-Strength gossamer, dipped a quill in it and fabricated this yarn an amoeba with learning difficulties. Surrender to it, however, and it's a minor charmer with a quirky cast and some clever lyrics that Leo Robin couldn't find room for in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Robert Keith, road-testing his patriarch for Young At Heart, a judge who mows his own lawn and does his sentencing in his dining room, gives Farley Granger 30 days for speeding through Duck Creek, a wide part in the road. Granger is with Broadway hoofer Ann Miller, ostensibly they are eloping but that doesn't stop Miller dashing back to Broadway (Duck Creek is in Connecticut) to do her big number. Gaoler Chill Wills thinks he's still playing Mr. Neely in Meet Me In St Louis and judges wife Fay Wray seems to miss King Kong. S.Z. Zackall owns a department store that wouldn't be out of place on Madison Avenue in a town with a population of 4,000 souls. Zackall has a son, Bobby Van, a highly accomplished song-and-dance man who aspires to play on Broadway though it never occurs to him to take a bus there while Zackall wants to see sonny boy shackled to judges daughter, jane Powell. Granger has a parent tooo, Billie Burke, aka Glinda the 'nice' witch from The Wizard of Oz. This somewhat eclectic mix fits where it touches and includes some good numbers, arguably - this WAS 1953 - among the last of the melodic melody/literate lyric school. In my case there were two major faults with MGM, Kathryn Grayson and Jane Powell, technically there were three but Jeannette MacDonald was before my time, but despite my aversion to the soprano voice I found this easy to take.
Review of Small Town Girl
