Summer Holiday (1948)

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

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.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

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.

MGM is known for producing some of the finest musicals in the 40s and 50s. The Arthur Freed production unit typically put together high calibre teams of the best stars, writers and directors. Summer holiday features Mickey Rooney, an experienced musical star who was also adept at comedy and a good actor to boot, music by popular songwriters Harry Warren and Ralph Blane, a screenplay by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett (It's a Wonderful Life) adapted from a Eugene O'Neill play and direction by Rouben Mamoulian, a director with a somewhat patchy record but whose forte was in musicals. This ought to be good.Unfortunately Rooney was past the peak of his career, and he is not best used here in any case. It wouldn't be surprising if the actor, by now in his late twenties, was starting to get fed up with being Hollywood's perpetual teenager. As it is, he gives a rather daft, cartoonish performance, lots of ape-like gestures and walking with his bottom sticking out, a constant caricature of an eager young man. This may well be the sort of thing that was intended. The costume department has fitted him with ridiculous baggy trousers, making him look a real prize prat. I know he is supposed to be a boy on the verge of manhood, and that this is supposed to be a comedy, but this clownish look is simply in the wrong vein.I'm not familiar with Eugene O'Neill's Ah Wilderness! so I'm sure how much of it has survived in Summer Holiday. Going by the other work of O'Neill's I do know, which is usually quite literate and rather edgy, I'd guess not very much. Goodrich and Hackett have done a good job of injecting some jokes that only work cinematically (such as Walter Huston suddenly realising how Rooney's speech is going to develop) and the picture is worth a giggle or two. At times it rallies for American conservatism to an extent that is almost self-parody, and it's hard at times to decipher exactly what message the movie is supposed to be given. My guess is that while it was seen as acceptable to go all out on bashing socialism, some of O'Neill's other libertarian views have been excised or toned down, attacking the one thing blindly without offering any sort of alternative. There are here and there hints of a message, but it's all a bit vague really. I'm not denouncing or advocating any particular politics here, just saying that this smacks of disorganised screen writing.Director Rouben Mamoulian brings some nice touches to the musical numbers, having the actors move from place to place as a song progresses, moving rhythmically to make a dance out of ordinary actions. There's a truly sublime moment during the school song where the film segues into a montage of living recreations of Grant Wood paintings. It's not quite perfect; while most of those images are naturalistic nods toward the original pictures, the rendering of American Gothic is far too literal, and as such it's a bit false and jarring. This is perhaps Mamoulian's biggest fault at this time. He didn't have the good taste to know when to tone down an idea.And the fact that Summer Holiday does seem to rely a lot of visual tricks does in many ways betray its weaknesses as a basic work. Even the songs by the promising pairing of Warren and Blane sound like rejects from Meet Me in St Louis. There are some good things about it – some nice ensemble pieces, Walter Huston's steady performance – but as a whole piece it is rather disappointing. Creative minds don't always merge to best effect, and putting together a dream team doesn't always guarantee spectacular results.

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.

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.