You Can't Run Away from It

June Allyson and Jack Lemmon star in this musical remake of "It Happened One Night," which centers on an oil heiress who is taken by her father from her wedding to a man of whom her father doesn't approve. When her father played by Charles Bickford threatens to have the marriage annulled, she jumps off the yacht they're on and gets away. The father instantly sets up an extensive search for her before she can get to her newlywed husband in Houston. Jack Lemmon is a newspaperman whose path crosses hers. Such is the gist. While this is essentially a scene-for-scene and almost word-for-word remake of the Clark Gable film and not nearly so good, it is a very pleasant, enjoyable little film helped by some very upbeat songs and the chemistry of the two leads. As remakes go, I've seen a lot worse. And, it looks like they had fun making this, especially June Allyson, who has a good dance number in the hay! June Allyson was a very good comedienne. Not much is said about her comedic timing. It's been said she was a good crier; she could cry on cue in her melodramas. But she was very funny in her comedies. One other good example is "Two Sisters from Boston." And, Jack Lemmon is always a joy to watch. Charles Bickford is a little stiff for the role of her father though. Arthur O'Connell would have been better. If you come across this film on TCM, I think you'd enjoy this whimsical piece of fluff.

Evidently someone decided that since they had Technicolor available they could remake It Happened One Night. June Allyson, who was 39 when it was made, is dreadfully miscast as a rich brat who runs away from her father. Jack Lemmon tries his best to make it work, but even he must have cringed when singing the lame musical sequences. The black and white of the original mirrored the gloomy darkness of the Great Depression, and the rich brat's handing the last of their money to a hungry woman was a big turning point of the whole movie; none of that here. When will Hollywood producers learn that you can't remake perfection?

I agree with most other reviewers here that this is a pale remake of a great classic film, though I found it mildly pleasant anyway.

Some of the other reviewers said why even try to remake a classic; why bother. What they don't understand is the big difference between our film culture and the pre-home video, pre-TCM, pre-repertory cinema era. Successful films were remade, because producers thought they were a good bet to make a profit. The studios usually already owned the story and had an effective script to base an update on; no need to pay for the rights to a play or novel, and they could probably pay less for an an updated script than for a new one. If the story was well received and made money years before, it had a better chance of being successful than untested material. The great majority of the potential audience for a remake had either never seen the older version, or had seen it many years before, usually just once, so the older version was just a faint memory. And much of the audience would be interested in seeing the story told with current stars, in color, and when it came in, in wide screen.

On another note, as of June 2015, TCM is still showing a poor quality print of the movie, the Cimemascope image cropped to something like 1:66 to 1 (it was not pan and scanned), color washed out (not remotely like what Technicolor print would have looked like when the film was new), mono soundtrack (the original was stereo according to IMDb). I imagine this is because it is not economically viable for Sony (owners of the Columbia film achieve) to do a new transfer.

This was one of Jack Lemmon's first films. He is cast in the role of Peter Warren, a free-lance journalist who takes on the challenge of escorting spoiled rich girl Ellie Andrews (played by June Allyson) back to her Father (Charles Bickford) and husband. Peter and Ellie didn't plan on falling in love during their bus trip, but it happened ... just as in "It Happened One Night" starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. This re-make is remarkably faithful to the original in plot and content. I would classify it as a charming, very tame movie worth the 80 minutes or so to watch it.

Jack Lemmon, a new leading man in Hollywood in the 1950s and a younger June Allyson, straight from the M.G.M. Galaxy of musical stars made this a tuneful technicolour re-make of "It Happened One Night," for Columbia Pictures, ably assisted by Stubby Kaye, who never fails with a song; and all this under the direction of Dick Powell, who was married to June Allyson. There have been many post-war musicals released on Video and DVD and Columbia would do well to add this one to their DVD collection. It would be a fitting tribute to the multi-talented Jack Lemmon and Dick Powell who, himself, who was a song and dance man of the 1930s.