Hottoceame The Age of Commercialism

Stoutor It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

jhkp Not sure what doesn't work about this big-budget Arthur Freed-MGM musical adaptation of O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness! (which itself was memorably filmed by Clarence Brown in 1935). For one thing, since I don't think anyone else has mentioned this, there is an absence of real color in the costumes and sets for virtually the entire film. Director Rouben Mamoulian was a technical innovator in various ways, and in this film he had the idea to restrict bright colors only to the bar scene in which Richard Miller - Mickey Rooney - gets drunk. The remainder of the film is whites, light grays , beiges, tans, and unobtrusive pastels. At the outset, this color scheme is a tasteful, orderly, quiet delight. And realistic - It is more or less what would be worn in the height of a New England summer in those days. White and light-colored suits and dresses. But. It goes on and on and on until I was actually starved for some color. This is a musical, and a comedy. With nothing in the foreground or background popping, visually, it doesn't really engage or delight the eye, and the drabness of the visuals makes the goings-on in the film seem more drab than they are. When color is finally used, it's used brilliantly, and it's worth seeing. But it's a long time coming, and then - it's over and we're back to pseudo-monochrome.It also seems to have been a problem to get the essence of Ah, Wilderness! into a musical form, without either cutting too much of the play, or having too few songs. I don't think this was ever solved properly, as the film is famous for its cut songs and numbers, yet at the same time, the ones that are left seem to be too numerous, and strangely superfluous. As for the cast, the one I liked best, and who I think does the best job, is Walter Huston, in the role of the father played on stage by George M. Cohan (with Gene Lockhart as Uncle Sid), and on screen, originally, by Lionel Barrymore (with Wallace Beery). Frank Morgan, a wonderful actor, seems miscast as Uncle Sid, or he takes a too-genteel approach. Whatever the reason, he's a disappointment in the play's most colorful and funniest role.Mickey Rooney, as others have said, was too old to be playing a kid graduating from high school (though he's a bit younger than some have stated, since the movie was made in 1946, not 1948, when it was released). He tries, and tries hard, and he almost pulls it off. I'm not as concerned about his age as about how he's really not the right type. Being a very good actor, he understands the character, and how the character thinks and feels, but it's a stretch for us to buy him as the young, green, innocent idealist. The other major problem with Mickey, and in fact it's a major problem with the film's other stars, as well, is that he's not really a singer or dancer. Yes, he did all those "let's put on a show" MGM musicals, and he was great. Yes, he was a major musical star on Broadway years later (in Sugar Babies). He was an accomplished musical performer - in a certain type of musical. Though he never carried the show alone, without a woman opposite him who was either a great singer or a great dancer. This is not to denigrate him, the man was a huge talent. But the talents required for the music in Summer Holiday are not the Mickey Rooney variety. In fact none in the cast can really carry a tune other than Gloria De Haven and Marilyn Maxwell (though Huston is a memorable singer, in his way - and he had a hit record in September Song, years earlier). And that's a large problem in a big musical film - though it may not be immediately obvious.There are wonderful moments in the movie, including the tableaux recreating various American paintings. But there are a lot of dry patches.

Robert J. Maxwell Alas. A great cast, a director who knew about colorful musicals, based on a warm comedy by a Nobel-winning playwright. And it doesn't quite come together.The story resembles Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" a little. It's set in turn-of-the-century New England, and a song by Walter Huston tells us all about how nice it is to live there. In case we had any doubt, it skips from one celebration (a high school graduation) to another (the Fourth of July), each even getting a song of its own.And that's the problem, Conrad Salinger's songs. The lyrics sometimes rhyme in a clever manner but, all in all, they're entirely forgettable. The scenes that were funny in O'Neill's play, "Ah, Wilderness," are still funny here, though. We can watch Mickey Rooney go through his antic experience getting drunk for the first time and kissing a dance hall girl.And the most amusing scene of all, Uncle Sid returning home, drunk, from the picnic is still the most amusing scene in this musical, although Frank Morgan as Uncle Sid isn't as outrageous as Wallace Beery was in an earlier version of the play. Beery sits down to lunch at the family table and begins munching a lobster, shell and all.The story retains is charm. Everybody wants to be Mickey Rooney and Gloria DeHaven, young, beautiful, and virginal. And we want an understanding, common-sense Dad, like Walter Huston. And we all want to change the world. O'Neill must have had a hell of a hard time writing comedy.

bkoganbing Summer Holiday is the forgotten musical version of Eugene O'Neill's Ah Wilderness and deservedly so with the Broadway musical adaptation of Take Me Along. With the exception of the Stanley Steamer song, none of the other Harry Warren-Ralph Blane songs are worth remembering and even that one is questionable. It was right after the release of this film that MGM let Mickey Rooney go and I don't think it was a coincidence. The film was made in 1946 and released in 1948, so Mickey was 26 playing an Andy Hardy like teenager. He was just way too old for the part of the 17 year old who was affecting radical ideas in a spirit of youthful rebellion.Rooney made four films for MGM from 1946 to 1948, this one, Killer McCoy a remake of Robert Taylor's A Crowd Roars, Love Laughs at Andy Hardy and Words and Music. In all of them Rooney was playing an adult part. Even in the Andy Hardy film, Mickey played an adult Andy Hardy returned from World War II. Why he was in this Louis B. Mayer only knows. Rooney's bad casting makes Summer Holiday all the worse because in the original Ah Wilderness the emphasis is on the father's character played here by Walter Huston. And in the Broadway show Take Me Along which won a Tony Award for Jackie Gleason, the Great One played the inebriated brother-in-law Uncle Sid here played by Frank Morgan and that's the central character.Gloria DeHaven steps in for Judy Garland as Rooney's sweet and adorable girl friend and Marilyn Maxwell plays the show girl who gives Rooney an adult education. In the original play O'Neill has her as a prostitute, but this was the Hollywood of the Code so all Marilyn does is get young Rooney soused.A lot of really talented people had a hand in this one and they do their best, but Summer Holiday fades rather quickly into a chilly autumn.

Wayne119 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.