Louis B. Mayer's latest soprano Jane Powell made her debut in a fluffy technicolor musical Holiday In Mexico where Jane is the daughter of US Ambassador Walter Pidgeon and getting into Deanna Durbin like situations, all of which are solved by a few high notes.I will say that MGM gave us a good variety of types of artists in Holiday In Mexico. Jose Iturbi and sister Amparo on the classical piano with a bit of boogie woogie, Ilona Massey with some Hungarian schmaltz, and Xavier Cugat's Latin Rhythms.It's all romance here, Jane conceives a crush on Iturbi with her love of classical music. While that's going on Walter Pidgeon gets something going with an old flame Ilona Massey he met before World War II. Jane's resentful of a new stepmother and Pidgeon has to proceed softly.Roddy McDowall is in the cast also as the British Ambassador's son and he takes the part that later would be filled by Scotty Beckett in Powell's films, the geeky brother or suitor. He and Jane dressed to the nines in top hat, white tie, and tails for him and a gown and borrowed mink coat for her to sneak into a nightclub is the high point for McDowall.It's all good clean G-rated fun and you come for the music in any event. Powell got off to a good start at MGM with this one.

I'm a bit late to this discussion, but the reviewer who kept harping on Powell not being an actress makes no sense. She carries herself quite well; of course she can act. Geez--she's charming and handles the role well. Someone who can't act would come across as a clueless amateur. Powell did just fine here and elsewhere. Look at SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS.Oh yeah, and ROYAL WEDDING. Powell did well opposite many a Hollywood star. Anyway, even though this movie is hardly among the classics, it's a fine showcase for Powell.

This movie is burdened mostly by poor pacing. The first half of the film is a long string of diverse musical numbers connected by a few lines of dialog. Then the director seemed to realize that some kind of plot development was necessary, so the musical numbers are few and far between in the second half of the movie, which is dedicated to getting the flimsy plot moving. Then there's the grand finale with Jane Powell delivering a beautiful rendition of "Ave Maria."Not once did I feel like I was in Mexico City. Believe it or not, you will see more keffiyehs than sombreros in this movie! Maybe the director thought it was Holiday in Morocco. However, some of the costumes are beautiful - especially some of Jane Powell's dresses.Walter Pidgeon, who I usually like, is only fair in his role as the US Ambassador to Mexico and an all-wise, empathetic and loving, but somewhat condescending father. Jane Powell has a beautiful voice, but her acting is erratic and bordering on manic in some of the early scenes. Jose Iturbi never was an actor, but had a film career based solely on his being an excellent pianist. Ilona Massey is, likewise, not a great actress, but she is beautiful and hot. Roddy MacDowell has such a high-pitched, soft voice, it is hard for me to ever find him very convincing as a serious love-interest, even as a teenager. At the end of the day, every minute of this film seems like it is populated not by real people, but by actors playing roles.If you like a fairly wide range of music, then the first part of this movie will delight you. I personally wanted to come up for more air between musical numbers. The two best scenes are in the second half. The funniest scene is between Pidgeon and the parents of one of his daughter's girlfriends. It is the cleverest plot device in a plot riddled with every cinematic cliché of the era, and it is quite ironic, with Pidgeon discovering he is the object of the affections of the young daughter of one of his ambassadorial colleagues.The penultimate scene in which Pidgeon talks frankly with Powell, his daughter, about facing up to life after you've made a fool of yourself is worth wading through the trite plot, clichés and front-loaded music. And her response, as depicted in the climactic scene is suitably uplifting.Spreading the musical numbers more evenly throughout the film, and developing the plot in a more even manner, too, would have improved this film quite a bit. As it is, it is more like sitting through two performances - first, a short concert, followed by a short film.

I could never understood why Ilona Massey didn't make it big as some other stars of that era...The closeup of her in technicolor singing "You, so its you"..was mesmerizing. ..outstanding blond beauty. The beauty mark, even sexier...I read where in her starlet days, MGM roomed her with another unknown beauty, a brunette, you have heard of her...Hedy lamarr. Both, trying to learn English in order to succeed in American movies...well Hedy won, hands down, and deservedly so. BTW, the irony of this statement, is that Hedy was originally set to play the part that Ilona got in this movie. In those days, Hedy was known to turn down parts that just wanted to accentuate her beauty, and she wisely turned this down. Ilona was then cast opposite MGM's king baritone, Nelson Eddy in "Balalaika", which was a flop...and MGM lost interest in her and ended her contract...Results? Her next movie was in Universal's horror movies, mainly because of her accent..What a shame.