Melodía del corazón

After Look For The Silver Lining Gordon MacRae and June Haver were teamed again for The Daughter Of Rosie O'Grady another period musical. This one is set in 1898 the year of the Spanish-American War and MacRae plays the real life vaudeville entertainer and impresario Tony Pastor who falls for one of the daughters of Rosie O'Grady.

MacRae looked remarkably well I have to say because in 1898 the real Tony Pastor was 61 years old and the objections of James Barton the husband and father of the daughters of Rosie O'Grady might well have been understood as cradle robbing.

June is only one of the daughters, but she's the one with the stage ambitions. Marcia Mae Jones is the oldest and is secretly married to returning Spanish American War veteran and policeman Sean McClory. But they're keeping it a secret from Barton though something is on the way that will blow the secret wide open.

Barton plays your blustering Irish American father, the part usually reserved for Barry Fitzgerald. He's got some objection to McClory so Jones and McClory are trying to work up nerve to tell him. Barton and his late wife were a vaudeville team back in the day, but her early death has soured him on show business. He has forbidden his daughters to even think about the stage and wants them to make marriages to men of substance.

The youngest daughter is Debbie Reynolds who is her usual perky self, but really hasn't a whole lot to do in this film. It might have been nice to team her with Gene Nelson who is one of the performers at Tony Pastor's. Nelson of course shows again why he came along just a tad too late to musicals.

Nothing special in The Daughter Of Rosie O'Grady, but the cast performs well and there's a nice Christmas finale to the film.