April Love ** (1957, Pat Boone, Shirley Jones, Dolores Michaels, Arthur O’Connell, Jeanette Nolan) – Classic Movie Review 10,825

Director Henry Levin’s handsome-looking, pleasant 1957 musical April Love is a simple, sweet Fifties homespun entertainment for the star Pat Boone’s young fans of all those years ago. If they are still around this might be an enjoyable nostalgia curiosity.

Sweet, smiling Pat Boone in his salad days scores strongly in his second movie star vehicle as Nick Conover, a young Chicago car thief sent for probation to bluegrass country on his uncle Jed (Arthur O’Connell) and aunt Henrietta (Jeanette Nolan)’s Kentucky stud farm, where he falls for cute neighbour Liz Templeton (Shirley Jones).

He wins a trotting race at the local fair, but, banned from driving, he also races a hot-rod, encouraged by Jones’s wild sister Fran Templeton (Dolores Michaels), and breaks the terms of his probation.

Alas, though, on the down side it is awfully sedate and rather slow moving.

The Oscar-nominated title song (Sammy Fain music and Paul Francis Webster lyrics) was a big hit for Boone. In the US, it was the number one hit for four weeks in 1957 and number two for six more weeks.

The screenplay is based on the novel The Phantom Filly by George Agnew Chamberlain.

April Love is a remake of 1944’s Home in Indiana, with Jeanne Crain, June Haver and Lon McCallister.

It is shot in CinemaScope and color by De Luxe.

Also in the cast are Matt Crowley, Brad Jackson, Harry Carter and Robert Adler.

Pat Boone was born on 1 June 1934 in Jacksonville, Florida. Boone’s debut is in Bernardine (1957), and April Love is followed by Mardi Gras and Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Shirley Jones was born on March 31, 1934 in Charleroi, Pennsylvania.

Pat Boone recalled: ‘We were on the Ferris wheel at a carnival, and the director said he wanted me to kiss the leading lady. I said, ‘On the mouth?’ He said it was something that people wanted to see. But, since it wasn’t in the script, I had not cleared it with the other Shirley – my wife, Shirley Boone. I got everyone to postpone until I could go home and talk to my wife.’

Pat Boone and Shirley Jones were a hit team, and Shirley Jones was meant to play the female lead in Mardi Gras but had to drop out because of her pregnancy.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,825

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