Too Young to Kiss

A pleasant film about a Midwestern girl trying to make it in the cut-throat world of professional classical music. It definitely resembles "The Major and the Minor," but it's neither as funny nor as endearing. Still, it's chock full of "popular" classical music, which makes the movie extra entertaining. (The theme that one recognizes from "The Wizard of Oz" is actually Robert Schumann's "The Happy Farmer.") June Allyson is always fun to watch, but her comic talents aren't really given full play here. Van Johnson is a bit too hyper (and a little sleazy); indeed, the whole movie seems a bit too full of nervous energy, as if everyone in it were in a big hurry to get it over with.

Fortunately the two stars make the derivative premise work pretty well. Seems concert pianist Cynthia (Allyson) can't get an audition with high-powered promoter Wainwright (Johnson). So she pretends to be Cynthia's 13-year old sister Molly. As an apparent child prodigy, she's a sensation as Wainwright takes over her career. Trouble is she has to keep impersonating an adolescent, which creates all kinds of amusing complications when Molly-Cynthia is attracted to the handsome promoter. If this sounds a lot like 1940's The Major And The Minor, that's because they share the same impersonation premise. Of course, that sort of suggestive material is tricky, especially for the airbrushed 1950's. But, on the whole, innuendo is played down in favor of personalities.

Except in height, the bubbly Allyson and Johnson are perfectly matched, so we know the outcome as soon as the credits-roll. And happily they don't disappoint. Though 33 at the time, the youthful Allyson still manages to bring off the age challenge pretty well. Of course, it'a real stretch at times, but wardrobe excels in outfitting Molly in adolescent clothes. On the other hand, poor Gig Young gets the thankless role of the extra man. But this is still early in his career. I don't know how they did it, but Allyson certainly looks like she's playing the concert piano, flying fingers and all. It's great too for us classical music fans hearing segments of Grieg's grandiose piano concerto. I do wish MGM had filmed in color, which better brings out the stars' sparkle. Nonetheless, the 90-minutes amounts to another happy pairing of the two stars, derivative material or not.

Hackett and Goodrich were some of the best screenwriters Hollywood ever produced and even when the movie isn't clicking on all cylinders, the dialogue usually is and when you listen to it, you notice the potential for a great movie is always there. Such is the case of Too young to kiss, a plot that had the necessary oomph but a director and stars that go for the easy. The pluses: Allyson is completely convincing in costume and makeup as the twelve year old she pretends to be. Van Johnson's droll and fatigued performance strikes the right pitch more often than not. The mistaken identity plot is handled here much better than it was in The Major and Minor, a movie to which comparisons have to be made, but is a better movie than that one. The ending feels rushed but that is because of the poor execution, in the hands of Billy Wilder who directed the other movie, it would have been gold as the love strokes and magic of the heart would conquer.

While a cute and lighthearted movie, it's a little unsettling that the teacher almost instantly falls in love with Cynthia after he knows for sure she's not twelve...but I suppose I'm reading into this too deep. I got a dreadful feeling at the thought of myself in her shoes, being sentenced to stay inside and not be able to go anywhere, but, other than that, it's a nice film. I suppose.

6/10

Did anyone notice that background music written for "The Wizard of Oz" was used in the opening credits and background music for this film? In "Oz", the music plays over the opening scene of Dorothy and Toto running along the road, presumably after encountering Miss Gulch. You hear it many times afterwards. I guess, for this film, they pulled it from the MGM music library, not knowing "Oz" would become such a classic, and that any bit of music from it would be so recognizable over sixty years later. The original piece for "Oz" was (erroneously)titled "Trouble in School."

UPDATE: I have been informed that the above-mentioned piece of music is actually not original to "Oz," but is,in fact, a classically composed children's melody.