Cult Flops - Summer Holiday (1948)

MGM, 1948
Starring Mickey Rooney, Gloria DeHaven, Walter Huston, and Frank Morgan
Directed by Rouben Mamoulien
Music by Harry Warren; Lyrics by Ralph Blaine

Rouben Mamoulien was one of the true maverick directors of stage and film from the 1920's through the 1950's. He often fought with studios and crews in order to get his vision on the screen, but more often than not, it paid off. Even when his shows and movies, like the first three-strip Technicolor feature Becky Sharp and the landmark Gershwin opera Porgy and Bess in 1935, didn't make money, they were usually critically acclaimed. Mamoulien had so many problems trying to see his vision through, this movie was finished in 1946 and wasn't released until 1948. Did it deserve better? Let's take a stroll down the street in Danville, Connecticut in 1902 and find out...

The Story: Richard Miller (Rooney) is a teenager with a lot of high-minded ideas about the rights of the common man that he picked up from the books he reads. He spouts them to anyone who'll listen, including his father, newspaper owner Nat Miller (Huston), and his nervous girlfriend Muriel (DeHaven). Angry when Muriel's banker father catches her reading his books and forbids their relationship, he goes out to a bar with a floozy (Marilyn Maxwell)...and learns that maybe he's not quite ready for adulthood yet.

He's not the only one in the Miller family who's having problems with his love life. Perpetually drunk Uncle Sid (Morgan) is trying to court Aunt Lilly (Agnes Moorehead), but she'll only take him if he gets a decent job and stop drinking. She's not happy when he doesn't quite manage to do either, especially after he guzzles down giant pitchers of beer at the Danville 4th of July Picnic.

The Song and Dance: This is such a charming movie. Mamoulien made much use of his trademark dialogue flowing naturally into music and back again, especially in the opening number and during the picnic. The supporting cast is even better. Morgan and Moorehead make a cute couple, and Huston is warm but firm as Richard's (mostly) supportive father. Maxwell gets to have fun vamping it up as the chorus girl who thinks she's found an easy mark in Richard. The lovely costumes and colorful Technicolor cinematography ably brings the early summer of over a century ago to life.

Favorite Number: The opening number "In Our Home Town" is actually a series of shorter numbers that introduce each member of the family, starting with Nat Miller explaining Danville and how things work there, and ending with Rooney and DeHaven in a soda shoppe. We get a more dynamic version of this in the "It's Independence Day" picnic sequence, as the music takes us to everyone's very different celebrations - the men drink their way through the holiday, the kids swim in a local pond, the teens dance together, and the women play croquet and enjoy their huge spread. "Afraid to Fall In Love" is a cute duet for Rooney and DeHaven as he tries to convince her to kiss him.

"I Think You're the Sweetest Kid I've Ever Known" is initially performed as Maxwell's come-on to Rooney. It makes clever uses of colored filters, making Maxwell's costume get scantier the drunker Rooney gets.

Trivia: This is based after the 1934 Eugene O'Neil play Ah, Wilderness. MGM had done an earlier, non-musical version in 1935 (with Rooney in the little brother's role), and there would be a stage musical in 1959 called Take Me Along with Robert Morse as Richard and Jackie Gleason as Sid.

MGM cut at least three numbers that appear in audio form on the limited edition CD soundtrack - "Never Again" for Morgan and Moorehead, "I Wish I Had a Braver Heart," a solo for DeHaven, and "Omar and the Princess," an extended fantasy sequence for Rooney and DeHaven that likely derived from the Persian poetry Richard gave to Muriel.

It was indeed finished in 1946 and not released until '46, after which it was one of their bigger flops of the year.

What I Don't Like: Rooney and DeHaven are way too old for their roles and try too hard to behave like teenagers. I kind of wish MGM had let Mamoulien do what he wanted and kept the numbers. The movie feels too rushed, and we don't really see much of Morgan and Moorehead, especially compared to how important they are in other versions.

A lot of this seems like an imitation of Meet Me In St. Louis, a much bigger MGM nostalgic hit from 1944. This is especially obvious in "The Stanley Steamer." Not only is the song just so-so, but it's pretty directly imitating "The Trolley Song."

The Big Finale: An adorable bit of Americana with some creative musical staging and a nice supporting cast that deserves to be better-known.

Home Media: Currently only available on DVD through the Warner Archives.

DVD