Jenny

Marlo Thomas plays Jenny, a single, naïve working girl living on her own who has managed to get herself pregnant (she was afraid of asking her family doctor for birth control pills, but since she doesn't live at home anymore this seems like a flimsy excuse). She's intent on raising the child alone until she meets a director of commercials in the park who has 30 days before he'll be inducted involuntarily into the Army. They go out on a date, realize they're both in a jam, and he proposes marriage--to him, it's just a way to dodge the draft (he already has a steady girlfriend), but she wants to feel like a real bride. George Bloomfield co-wrote and directed this rather simplistic drama that could have cut much deeper, but between Thomas' mood swings and Alan Alda's morose state (to show us his indifference) there aren't many opportunities for substantial drama. She wants to discuss baby names, he doesn't care; he wants to go out with his friends, she wants to stay home with him and be a couple. Bloomfield gets some very good moments from Thomas' situation in dealing with her Republican parents (a baffling couple played by Vincent Gardenia and Elizabeth Wilson, who played practically the same characters a year later in "Little Murders"). Unfortunately, Bloomfield doesn't know how to mount his story without resorting to melodrama (few of his ideas are fresh, and he runs out of them awfully fast). Thomas acts more simply and plainly than on her TV series "That Girl"; she still dresses like a fashionable big city waif, but the lower-key she affects here is engaging for a while (before the movie falls apart). David L. Quaid did the very fine cinematography; Michael Small composed the light, inoffensive score. ** from ****