In the Good Old Summertime (1959)

Four stars, will definitely watch again. You know it's good when you see it pop up on your Tivo and you watch it again start to finish, even though you still remember the plot.

The best thing about in the Good Old Summertime is that it's a Christmas movie. It starts out with a voiceover reminiscing about the good old days in Chicago in the summertime and ends on Christmas Eve.

If you have an eerie feeling that you've seen this one before, you may have seen its predecessor, "The Shop Around the Corner" or the Broadway musical "She Loves Me" or the more recent re-write, "You've Got Mail".



I find it strange that I love this move although I hate You've Got Mail. The premise could just be aggravating, really: two people fall in love through the mail while simultaneously meeting and annoying each other in real life.

Luckily, Judy Garland is just so full of emotion for everything that it makes it believable that her character would love her pen pal as passionately as she hated her coworker.

Plus there are the costumes! Judy Garland's first outfit features a parasol, a hat with cherries on it, and a fake bird that perches atop the hat. AWESOME.

Also features Buster Keaton in a supporting role...up till recently I had no idea how long he had survived in the film business - it's really amazing! Of course he does the physical comedy that adds so much to the scenes he's in.

The movie features a violin virtuoso - giving over one whole scene just to her playing - kind of like the operatic orphan in "Here Comes the Groom".

The movie ends with a forgettable Christmas song and an unforgettable line "Psyhologically I'm very confused but personally I feel just wonderful."
And then as a bonus, you get a return to the "Good Old Summertime" and get to see tiny Liza Minelli's screen debut.

Tea for Two (1950)

Three stars - one for Uncle Max, one for the tap dancing one for Eve Arden.
Won't watch again - unless maybe in mute.

It seems to have been Doris Day Day on TCM this past Saturday. This early Doris flick is based on the broadway show "No No Nanette" it has a very silly premise that a girl and her guardian bet that she can't say "yes" to anything for 48 hours. Hilarity Ensues!

Featuring S.Z. Sakall - aka Sasha from Casablanca and the cook in Christmas in Connecticut. I'm getting so close to this man with the charming thick german accent combined with bumbling antics that make him non-threatening that I'm going to adopt him as my official vaguely-jewish honorary uncle. In fact, in the movie, he plays Uncle Max who is suprisingly BAD with money...what? What kind of vaguely jewish uncle is he?

Besides dear darling Uncle Sasha-Max, the best part of the movie is the tap dancing.*

Robert Osbourne of TCM tells me the songs all came from the vast library Warner Bros had purchased in anticipation of the advent of sound movies. Meaning, in Robert-Osbourne's euphemistic double-talk, that this music sat around for, oh, about 30 years and no-one cared to use it till now.

All the songs are pretty sappy and forgettable, but the dancing is great. Comparable to White Christmas.

I find it irritating that Nanette has to say "no" to anything she's asked, but sometimes she turns right back around and says "but I'll do it anyway!" - she a really bad cheater and it irks me, since that's the whole premise of the movie. If I were her Uncle Max, I'd have spanked her.

In typical DD fashion there is NO kissing, NO hugging, no emotion or sensuality of any kind. No stocking scenes, even! However, when the hero and heroine want to express their feelings and they can't dance, they lean their heads together and harmonize! Rapture!

*Strike that! Eve Arden is better than the tap dancing and I almost forgot! She gets a star of her own (I've had to revise to three stars). It's worth watching just for her reaction to DD. If the whole movie could be from her perspective, you'd have a classic. Just goes to show - a bitter and beautiful brunette is far more entertaining than an innocent blonde ANY day of the week. Even Doris Day Day.