Summer Holiday

If you are a fan of Mickey Rooney, or if you loved "Ah, Wilderness!" (1935 movie) and "Take Me Along" (Broadway musical version of "Ah, Wilderness!"), you will find this version of Eugene O'Neill's only comedy worth seeing.

Mickey Rooney is in both films. In "Summer Holiday," he does a good job as the older brother, but I liked him better as the little brother in the 1935 movie. Butch Jenkins plays the little brother in "Summer Holiday" (the Mickey Rooney role in the 1935 movie). Somebody must have decided the role was not cute enough, so they gave poor little Butch a lot of extra lines and cutesy costumes. Remembering Mickey's robust performance in the earlier version, I found Butch embarrassing.

The music in "Summer Holiday" is not very inspired. "Take Me Along" has better songs. I don't dislike "Summer Holiday." It just doesn't live up to my expectations of it.

The play on which it was based was a piece of homey Americana and this version continues that. True Mickey Rooney sometimes overacts but he is a real personality and believable. The idea of singing some of the speeches is what's unusual and I believe it works. It sets this film apart from the rest. I always felt the bar room scene was almost a different play and it's done well especially by M. Maxwell. Have you noticed that her hat and dress changes color depending on how Mickey sees her in that scene?

Musicalization of Ah! Wilderness is okay with Mickey one of the oldest high school graduates you'll ever see. This was a huge flop upon release and coupled with Rooney's next film Words and Music, also a significant money loser, it signaled the end of his reign as a box office champ and a long slide until he reemerged as a character actor in his up and down career.

It's the supporting cast of Huston, Morgan, Selena Royale and Marilyn Maxwell that make the picture worth seeing. Agnes Moorehead, who looks great in the period costumes, is wasted in the part of Cousin Lily which has been reduced from the original.

Even though it's O'Neill's only comedy the original has touches of drama and pathos all of which have been drained from this. Still a pleasant film with gorgeous color and MGM's accustomed quality production values, the clothes in particular are beautiful, but as musicals go this is minor with no memorable songs nor dances.

With Mickey Rooney having died about a month ago, I went to the library to see if any of his films were there. I managed to find both this and Thoroughbreds Don't Cry there and checked them out. I just reviewed TDC so this is what I think of this one: It's quite good with the musical numbers and some of the atmosphere of both clean-cut small-town Americana and the more brassy charm of low-rent bars when the Rooney character goes to meet some dance hall girls and has an eye-popping' encounter with Marilyn Maxwell. Gloria DeHaven has her own wholesome charms as his girl-next-door partner. Walter Huston is fine as his wise father. And Frank Morgan is charismatic as his drunk uncle. The songs by Harry Warren and Ralph Blaine are tuneful enough. And the screenplay by Frances Goodrich & Albert Hackett-who also wrote my favorite movie, It's a Wonderful Life-has some nice humorous touches. Not great, but Summer Holiday was entertaining enough for me.

"Ah, Wilderness!" should make a great musical--in fact, it made a very good one on Broadway, as "Take Me Along" in 1959--and this Freed Unit special has some greatness in it, which keeps being undercut. It's beautifully cast, the Technicolor is extraordinary, and the director, the always underrated Rouben Mamoulian, shows a lot of feel for the small-town turn-of-the-century setting and the small crises in the Miller family. But it was a troubled production, and it suffered some ruinous cuts. The editing's frankly sloppy, and misguided things happen that you don't expect to happen in MGM musicals. Mickey Rooney (10 years too old for the part, but he hides it well, and not doing those Mickey Rooney overacting things that often annoy me) and Gloria De Haven (lovely, with a lovely voice) dance fetchingly to "Afraid to Be in Love" on an emerald park lawn, and the number just fades out, no payoff, no resolution. Rooney gets drunk with Marilyn Maxwell in a cheap saloon, and there's supposed to be an Omar Khayam dream ballet (there are production stills), but it doesn't happen, and that scene, too, just fades out. The always-exemplary Walter Huston, who's charming here, rolls up the movie with the curtain line, "Well, spring isn't everything, is it, Essie?", and it's supposed to resonate because he was supposed to sing "Spring Isn't Everything," a sweet ballad similar to the "September Song" Huston introduced in "Knickerbocker Holiday," but that, too, has been cut, so it just seems an odd way to fade out. What's left of the Harry Warren-Ralph Blane score isn't great, but it's quite integrated into the action, and well performed. I caught this again on TCM recently and it's better than I remembered, but I keep wanting it to be better still.