No Room for the Groom ** (1952, Tony Curtis, Piper Laurie, Don DeFore, Spring Byington) – Classic Movie Review 9849

Director Douglas Sirk’s 1952 No Room for the Groom is a frothy light comedy centring on GI Alvah Morrell (Tony Curtis) eloping to marry Lee Kingshead (Piper Laurie) in Las Vegas before she has had a chance to tell her parents and the misunderstandings that ensue when he visits the family home.

Director Sirk (Magnificent Obsession, Imitation of Life) usually has the knack of turning ordinary screenplays into extraordinary films: here he produces a pleasant enough romp, but a letdown by his normal standards. Curtis and Laurie make a sweet pair of newly weds, and Spring Byington has a field day as Mama Kingshead, Curtis’s housekeeper and Lee’s mom.

No Room for the Groom is a quickly produced, short running (82 minutes) low-budget production from Universal International Pictures in black and white. The script’s fluffy tone is fine, but some weight and more good gags would help.

Curtis recalled: ‘Everybody carried on later about what a great cult director Sirk was, but I didn’t find him that intriguing, and neither did Piper Laurie. Sirk was cold and aloof and unsympathetic toward the younger actors and didn’t impress me at all.’

Joseph Hoffman’s screenplay is based on the novel My True Love by Darwin L Teilhet.

Also in the cast are Don DeFore, Spring Byington, Lee Aaker, Jack Kelly, Lillian Bronson, Paul McVey, Steven Chase, Frank Sully, Janet Clark, Jack Daly, Catherine Howard, Lynne Hunter, Lucille La Marr, Harold Lockwood, Tyler MacDuff, Dolores Mann, Richard Mayer, Fred J Miller, Helen Noyes, Fess Parker (film debut), James Parnell, Alice Richey, and Lee Turnbull.

David Janssen as Soldier (scenes deleted).

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9849

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