MARGIE (1946)

After coming up short with CENTENNIAL SUMMER, a period family musical designed to copy M-G-M's mega-successful MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS/’44, 20th/Fox head honcho/producer Darryl F. Zanuck got closer to mark in this downsized coming-of-age piece. Built, like ST. LOUIS, on a series of short stories (here by Ruth McKenney*), the time is the late ‘20s, with real rather than original tunes, and the dramatic crises all minor league stuff. Jeanne Crain, who’d also been in the recently released CENTENNIAL, plays a motherless teen trying to get thru her high school senior year without falling on her face, letting the new French teacher see she’s crazy about him and finding a legit date for the prom. (The last lifted straight from ST. LOUIS.) All of this being told in the present by Crain to her own teenage daughter as they rummage thru the attic in 1946. And it comes off, sweet, but not too sticky, thanks to the taste & tact of director Henry King who refuses to overdo, go fussy or fusty and avoids pushing the cutes on us or his players. (King getting right so much Otto Preminger got wrong in CENTENNIAL.) And note the nice location shooting (real streets, real snow, real breath puffs) with Fox’s typically pudding-rich TechniColor (D.P. Charles Clarke) nicely tamed in quieter indoor scenes. If distant Dad Hobart Cavanaugh & dreamy teach Glenn Langan registered a little higher on the memorability meter, the film might have a bigger rep. (Big hit at the time, though.) Everyone else a hoot, especially Barbara Lawrence & Conrad Janis as dance-crazy neighboring lovebirds, and Alan Young as a poetry spouting nerd. Crain, 21 at the time, passes easily as a teen girl unaware of how lovely she is. But yikes!, imagine seeing a High School teacher being encouraged to date one of his teenage students nowadays!

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *McKenney best remembered for her autobiographical MY SISTER EILEEN stories, filmed in ‘42, then twice musicalized. First on B ‘way in ‘53 for Roz Russell (score by Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden, Adolph Green) and then with inferior new songs for a 1955 film. Here, in subfusc form, is the compete 1958 tv taping of Russell’s show. (Better quality on a few separate numbers if you look around youtube.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsxzyqJX5wY