As filtered through the scrubbed-clean, sexless mores of the 1950s, Booth Tarkington's "Penrod Stories" proved to be able ground for Warner Bros. in concocting sort of a low-brow variation on "Meet Me in St. Louis", with Doris Day as the small-town Indiana gal finding love with the boy next door (actually, across the street) while her ornery sibling (Billy Gray) causes chaos in the neighborhood. The Americana flavor (circa 1917) is laid-on with a thick coat of glossy color, while Doris twinkles and shines on cue. Warners had an immediate box-office attraction in Day, but too often cast her in bucolic settings (she seemed so much livelier in dressed-up musical comedies). Here, she cements her "wholesome as apple pie" image with smudges of dirt on her face and her hair in pigtails. It doesn't quite wash that leading man Gordon MacRae initially thinks she's a boy, though their sweetheart romance still manages to convey a bit of plastic magic. Followed in 1953 with "By the Light of the Silvery Moon", which was more of the same. **1/2 from ****
Review of On Moonlight Bay
On Moonlight Bay
(1951)
Wholesome frolic with Day in her tomboy period, learning to act "like a lady"...
26 October 2010