Minor MGM musical with the usual lightweight framework providing the stars a chance to break out in song. If you enjoy that type of movie than this will be a pleasant diversion especially since it introduced the beautiful ballad *Time After Time" which is performed in various versions several times throughout the film. However if you're looking for any semblance of reality this isn't the picture for you. Frank Sinatra and Kathryn Grayson are in fine voice and Jimmy Durante his usual warm, wisecracking somewhat befuddled self. Gloria Grahame although prominently billed, due to a best supporting actress nomination that year, is in and out of the picture after the first five minutes.

"It Happened In Brooklyn" is so good-natured and cloying you can't help but like it. It's about a soldier (Sinatra) just discharged from the army after WW II to find a girl friend and a life. He disembarkation point is England, and after making friends with Peter Lawford, off he goes, returning to Brooklyn. From here the plot is so contrived it is hard to recount due to the lack of believability, and the story can barely drag its carcass from one song to the next, so shameless are the screenwriters.But the songs. They are exquisite, written by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, and the main reason for my rating. Sinatra is in fine voice, and Jimmy Durante has been irreplaceable on America's stellar list of entertainers. "Time After Time', "It's the Same Old Dream" are two of Frank's better numbers, but the piece de resistance is Sinatra and Durante doing, " It's Gotta Come From The Heart". Priceless. There are a couple of opera numbers for Kathryn Grayson, so there is something for everyone in this picture.It is a flag-waver and a preposterous tall tale, but it all works. All you have to do is wait for the musical numbers. And they are worth waiting for.

Jazzy singer Frank Sinatra (as Danny Webson Miller) returns to Brooklyn, after serving during World War II. Mr. Sinatra moves in with his old high school janitor Jimmy Durante (as Nick Lombardi). Sinatra suffers not from "shell shock", but from "stage fright", as he tries to make it in the music business. He falls in love with operatic soprano Kathryn Grayson (as Anne Fielding). A "love triangle" is formed when visiting pal Peter Lawford (as Jamie Shellgrove) also falls for Ms. Grayson.Not much of a movie, really. Sinatra is the highlight; he sings the timeless classic "Time After Time", and other songs written by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne. Sinatra and Mr. Durante are a likable team, performing "The Song's Gotta Come from the Heart" and "I Believe", the latter with young Bobby Long (as Johnny O'Brien). Young pianist Billy Roy (as Leo Kardos) performs well. Sexy Gloria Grahame has an early walk around appearance. Sinatra's accompanying Columbia single was, deservedly, an instant double-sided hit: "I Believe" (#5) / "Time After Time" (#16). **** It Happened in Brooklyn (3/13/47) Richard Whorf ~ Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Durante, Kathryn Grayson, Peter Lawford

It's a friendly film from MGM - I can't say it is the best of the early MGM Sinatra musicals (ON THE TOWN is a good competitor), but it certainly gave Frank Sinatra his best part of the musicals. He was dominated in ON THE TOWN, ANCHORS AWAY, and TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME by co-star partner Gene Kelly (in fact Kelly has the center of the story lines in several of these). Here Sinatra is at center stage for a change, supported by Durante, Grayson, and Peter Lawford. His character is not as annoying naive here as in ANCHORS AWAY, and has opportunities to stretch. The only thing that is missing is that the screenplay shows he has a potential love partner at the end - but sees fit not to have her available for the finale.IT HAPPENED IN BROOKLYN is about a returning soldier (Sinatra). Stationed in England, he is going home and he is taken to task by a nurse (Gloria Grahame) for not socializing with his fellow soldiers, or the women at a final dance, or the English people. When she hears he is from Brooklyn (where she's from too) she has a fit because (as she puts it) Brooklyn people are supposed to be friendly. Prodded, Sinatra fitfully does mingle, and actually makes the acquaintance of a British Duke* (Aubrey Mather) and his grandson (Peter Lawford). The Duke's mother was from Brooklyn, and he wishes his grandson would stop being so withdrawn and more like the Brooklyn people that Mather has in his blood. Sinatra has already gotten to know that Lawford is a fine pianist and composer, and says that if Lawford ever comes to Brooklyn he should look Sinatra up and Sinatra will do what he could to open Lawford's personality up.[*Aubrey's title is Duke of Dunstable. If so, it shows that the screenwriter was acquainted with Gilbert and Sullivan: the Duke of Dunstable is one of the "Heavy Dragoons" who turn aesthetic in the opera PATIENCE. Either that, or that Duke of Dunstable (from 1881) is Aubrey's grandfather - and Lady Jane is his grandmother, and the mother-in-law of the lady from Brooklyn. What would Reginald Bunthorne have said?]When Sinatra returns to Brooklyn he meets a music teacher (Kathrine Grayson) at his old high school (New Utrecht High - which is a real high school, by the way). He also is reunited with the janitor at the high school (Durante). Jimmy invites Frank to room with him while he tries to find work. Soon his pep talks and support allow Sinatra to get a better job in a music store, and encourage Sinatra to date Grayson. But then Lawford shows up, and he and Grayson soon find themselves left on their own while Sinatra gets involved in his career, Lawford's potential musical career (as songwriter), and helping Grayson push the potentially great career of a local piano prodigy (William Roy) who desperate needs a scholarship to continue studies. As Grayson and Lawford are together more and more (with only Durante noticing what's happening) the inevitable occurs as they start falling for each other. And we'll leave the conclusion for the viewer to find.It has a nice score, including the standard TIME AFTER TIME. But most movie buffs recall the film's music for two sequences with Frank. In one he just lands in Brooklyn, and he takes a cab to his favorite landmark: the Brooklyn Bridge. And he sings to it. Later, when he has to audition for a promotion at the music store, Durante accompanies him, and they sing the duet "You Got To Sing From The Heart". The latter sequence was shown in the movie THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT - but part was cut, wherein both singers tackle foreign language lyrics (from "Oy Tchochonya" among other tunes). But it ends with Frank going into his imitation of Jimmy's style, down to Jimmy's leg movements. He does a nice imitation - and would do it again in later television shows, wherein Jimmy would show up again unannounced.Grayson does her opera aria - the "Bell Song" from Delibes' LAKME. It is a lovely number - but too static. Lawford also sings (a "boogy-woogy" number) in the music shop, to show he too is loosening up. On the whole it is an entertaining film - not one of the great musicals of all time, but worthy of it's stars and pleasant to watch. I only wish they had just thought better of not bringing Sinatra's future choice of girlfriend back. But you can't have everything.