The Second Time Around (1961)

Redundant and unnecessary.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

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

This certainly is a very unusual film--and its being so different is a big plus. The film begins in the East and the widow Lu Rogers (Debbie Reynolds) and her children are living with her mother-in-law. However, Lu wants to go out and earn her own money and find a place of her own for her family, so she takes up on an offer by an old family friend to move to Arizona (about 1912) and work for him. However, when Lu arrives she learns that the man is dead...and she is without any prospects. But a woman (Thelma Ritter) feels sorry for her and agrees to take this city girl on as a hired hand.Along the way, two men (Andy Griffith and the rakish Steve Forrest) vie for her hand. She also has a bit of a small feud with the local sheriff...that ends up erupting into an all-out war! Can this nice little lady manage to survive all this?!The film is, more than anything else, fun...along with being unusual. It's hard not to like the film and Reynolds is at her spunky best. Well worth seeing and as much different from a typical western as you can find! Cute and clever.

A real western romp with Debbie Reynolds showing almost the same stamina she would show 3 years later in the marvelous "Unsinkable Molly Brown."Debbie had a wonderful support cast to work with, as a widow from N.Y. who ventures to pre-statehood Arizona.We know by the hand who actually murdered Sam Wechsler in his store. It would have been nice if something had been said about it.As always, Thelma Ritter shows her mettle as the strong-willed Aggie who takes the Reynolds character in to do farm work.Naturally, we have the usual characters in such a film- a gambler, farmer with a mother who will not let him lead the nest, and an array of other assorted character.While it may come as a surprise regarding who Reynolds winds up with, there is good clean fun here.

I remember seeing this movie at the theater and thoroughly enjoying it. I would very much like to see it again and cannot understand why it is not available. I loved Debbie Reynolds, of course, but Thelma Ritter as always is truly splendid as are all other cast members. Steve Forrest is a handsome romantic lead with Andy Griffin and Juliet Prowse creating a colorful background. The whole concept of a very proper young Boston widow with two adorable children trying to make a new life in the West working as of all things a ranch hand makes for most enjoyable entertainment. Why is this movie not available for purchase on DVD?

Film buffs love to say Debbie Reynolds is 'underrated' as an actress--but most of her fluffy output from the 1960s look suspiciously like Doris Day cast-offs. Finally, in "The Second Time Around", she gets a sparkling comedy, a disarming concoction with Reynolds in good form as a widowed mother of two who relocates to Arizona in search of work and ends up the new mayor of a tumbleweed town. Sharp script, colorful supporting work from Andy Griffith, Thelma Ritter, Juliet Prowse and the reliable Steve Forrest, and a fine sense of atmosphere and nuance makes this one of Debbie's best comic vehicles. *** from ****