Texas, Brooklyn & Heaven

Guy Madison inherits $6,000. He quits his job on the paper and heads from Texas to New York to finish his play and get it produced. Meanwhile, Diana Lynn also leaves Texas, and the two of them travel together. She goes to Brooklyn, where she charms everyone in the Borough of Churches, which is populated exclusively by eccentrics. Meanwhile, Madison makes the rounds.

Their inevitable love story is the glue that is supposed to hold together this collection of oddities, like obnoxious spinster sisters, a superannuated pickpocket, a place where you can ride camels across the desert, elephants across the jungle, or horses across the prairies, as well as an assortment of bartenders, Santa Clauses and cops. It doesn't work on those terms, but there's such an assortment of fine comic character actors offering eccentric performances that I was charmed nonetheless. Where else can you can find James Dunn and Michael CHekhov, Florence Bates and Lionel Stander, William Frawley and Roscoe Karns, Margaret Hamilton and Irene Ryan, and Audie Murphy in his film debut?