Summer Holiday **** (1948, Mickey Rooney, Gloria DeHaven, Walter Huston, Frank Morgan, Agnes Moorehead) – Classic Movie Review 7355

MGM’s boy star Mickey Rooney finally comes of age at 27 in ace director Rouben Mamoulian’s delightfully handsome and extravagant 1948 Technicolor musical rejig of Eugene O’Neill’s famed play Ah Wilderness! about a Danville, Connecticut, family at the turn of the last century.

Summer Holiday is a delicious vintage experience, thanks to first-rate Harry Warren-Ralph Blane numbers, tireless work from Rooney as Richard Miller, and quality acting from Agnes Moorehead (as strict Aunt Lily), Walter Huston (as patriarch Nat Miller) and Frank Morgan (as drunken Uncle Sid), as well as stylish direction from the masterly Mamoulian.

Richard is in love with girl next door Muriel McComber (Gloria DeHaven), but her father Mr McComber (John Alexander) does not care for Richard’s revolutionary ideas. Also co-starring, Marilyn Maxwell plays Belle and Selena Royle plays Mrs Essie Miller.

Rooney was the young brother Tommy in MGM’s original 1935 film version of Ah Wilderness!, nicely played by Jackie ‘Butch’ Jenkins this time. Arguably, Summer Holiday may be just a tiny tad less effective than the 1935 Ah Wilderness!, but otherwise it is beyond criticism.

The songs include ‘It’s Our Home Town’ and ‘The Stanley Steamer’.

Also in the cast are Anne Francis, Michael Kirby, Shirley Johns, Hal Hackett, John Alexander, Virginia Brissac, Howard Freeman, Alice MacKenzie, Ruth Brady, Charles Halton, Budd Fine, Wally Cassell, Oliver Blake, Terry Moore, Emory Parnell, Don Garner, Francis Stevens and Margaret Bert.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7355

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com