The movie manages to blend more serious points with a light-hearted humor worthy of the OMB franchise. As expected, Brooks (Arden) gets a lot of good snappy lines. In fact, the script individualizes each of the characters in distinctive fashion, from bumbling Boyton to squeaky Denton to smug Conklin. Of course, Brooks being a respected English teacher can't be spoofed, but as a single middle-age woman, she gets her share.
But please, oh please, don't let Denton squeak out another tune. He may have ruined music forever. And get a load of June Blair as the knock-out blonde who parades through the newspaper office like a candy doll in a boy's gym class. There's also a number of nice touches, like Brooks nudging open a dreamy bridal door, or the stuffy Conklin stepping onto a broken ladder and into the sea, or the helpful location shots of mid-50's suburbia.
The plot has several threads—untangling Brooks' romantic life, reforming a delinquent Gary Nolan (Nick Adams), getting Conklin elected to School Board, among others. Note the one straight role is Adams' wayward teen. This was a time when juvenile delinquency was a major social concern. So the script goes to some length showing how the boy is reformed by honest work.
Overall, the canny script manages to interweave the many threads in entertaining fashion. Nonetheless, it's the impeccable Arden who carries the show with her compelling presence. All in all, I think it's a rather underrated 90-minutes of smoothly done chuckles, and a fitting final curtain for the memorable OMB.
(In passing-- I suspect one reason the movie has been generally overlooked is because of the familiarity of the format, namely the long-running TV and radio versions, that eclipsed the overall quality of this production.)
