What's the Hungarian word for Gemütlichkeit? One of my best friends married a Hungarian from Michigan -- she was raised Episcopalian, I think, converted to Judaism and, as my friend says, "They must put something in the mikvah water."
I think it's something about Hungarians, though. In the British industry, was there anyone prouder of being English than Alexander Korda? Anyone who more loved the quiet bypaths of English wackiness than Emeric Pressburger? Who could George Bernard Shaw trust to put his Hibernian observations of the English but Gabriel Pascal? Over in these United States, if you wanted to make a movie called YANKEE DOODLE DANDY, would you think of anyone directing it except Michael Curtiz? STARS AND STRIPES FOREVER? Henry Koster.
If you wanted a producer for a hodge-podge collection of American variety acts mixed with a decent American family, then Joe Pasternak was your man. After he shaped Deanna Durbin's career at Universal, he moved to MGM, where he wound up in charge of their second musical unit. Among the films he produced was this one, directed by László Kardos, with S.Z. Sakall in a major supporting role. It starred Jane Powell, pretty much in the Durbin mode, with Ann Miller doing her brassy high-speed tap routines and Bobby Van, whose routines are so high energy that they make me tired to look at.
It's all very white bread and very minor and pleasant. It's not a great musical, like Freed's unit aimed at and managed to achieve with an astonishing regularity. However, it's a fine piece to round out a double bill with one of them.
I think it's something about Hungarians, though. In the British industry, was there anyone prouder of being English than Alexander Korda? Anyone who more loved the quiet bypaths of English wackiness than Emeric Pressburger? Who could George Bernard Shaw trust to put his Hibernian observations of the English but Gabriel Pascal? Over in these United States, if you wanted to make a movie called YANKEE DOODLE DANDY, would you think of anyone directing it except Michael Curtiz? STARS AND STRIPES FOREVER? Henry Koster.
If you wanted a producer for a hodge-podge collection of American variety acts mixed with a decent American family, then Joe Pasternak was your man. After he shaped Deanna Durbin's career at Universal, he moved to MGM, where he wound up in charge of their second musical unit. Among the films he produced was this one, directed by László Kardos, with S.Z. Sakall in a major supporting role. It starred Jane Powell, pretty much in the Durbin mode, with Ann Miller doing her brassy high-speed tap routines and Bobby Van, whose routines are so high energy that they make me tired to look at.
It's all very white bread and very minor and pleasant. It's not a great musical, like Freed's unit aimed at and managed to achieve with an astonishing regularity. However, it's a fine piece to round out a double bill with one of them.