Il sole nel cuore

It was hard to avoid hearing April Love during 1957, it was number one on the charts for a bit. With every minute that Pat Boone sang this song on the radio it was just free advertising for the film that this was the title song for.

Pat plays a kid from Chicago who's been sent out to his uncle and aunt's farm while he sits out a bit of juvenile joy riding in a stolen car for which he's gotten probation and a suspended license. After a bit of trouble he proves useful around the farm and makes the acquaintance of neighbor sisters Dolores Michaels and Shirley Jones. They both kind of like Pat, but it's Jones he makes the music with.

Besides April Love Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster wrote a bunch of other songs for Pat and Shirley to sing. Nothing anywhere near as memorable as the title song. It got the only Oscar recognition for April Love, a nomination for Best Original Song. It however lost to All The Way in 1957.

What Pat also does is take up harness racing the way Lon McCallister did in Home In Indiana for which April Love is a remake. A sore subject in the house as O'Connell and Nolan lost their own son and this was his thing.

April Love holds up well after 60 years. As I write this it's one of the few films of the era where both leading man and woman are still with us. Doubt it will be remade though, you don't get singers like Pat Boone and Shirley Jones any more.