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.

Quite bland musical version of Eugene O'Neill's gentle comedy play about a family in rural America before the first world war.MGM made the first (non-musical) version in 1935 under the play's original title, AH, WILDERNESS! That film, which stars Eric Linden, Lionel Barrymore, and Wallace Beery is superb.Here we get Mickey Rooney (aged 28 playing a high school senior), Walter Huston, and Frank Morgan. Huston and Morgan are OK, but Morgan can't hold a candle to Beery's Uncle Sid.The rest of the cast here is competent but all the "edge" has been taken out of the original story. Agnes Moorehead plays the old maid aunt, Selena Royle is the mother, Gloria DeHaven is the girl next door, Butch Jenkins is the kid brother (Rooney played the role in the '35 film), and John Alexander plays the blowhard neighbor.Not helping is the bland and forgettable music score. They would have been better off using real songs from the period.The main problem is that Rooney is simply too old for this, and his acting is pretty bad. By 1948 he was already about to end his second marriage (first was to Ava Gardner). And here he is trying to play a virginal high schooler. It gets really sticky when he rebels and meets Belle.In this version Belle is a chorus girl rather than a prostitute. Marilyn Maxwell is a breath of fresh air as the salty, plain-talking, overly made-up woman trying to take the green kid for a few bucks ... until another guy shows up. This is a nicely lit and interesting scene as Belle is "transformed" in Rooney's eyes from the cheap chorus girl into a colorful woman of the world. Maxwell is terrific. It's a great small role; in the '35 version Helen Flint was also terrific.Bottom line is that this is just a so-so film. It can't compare with the '35 version of the story, and it certainly doesn't come up to the MGM standard for its '40s musicals. The movie was not a box office success.

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 a summer treat that has become an annual ritual at our house. I never fail to slip the video tape into the VCR as May morphs into June and the last days of school are rolling into summer vacation.Mickey Rooney is exuberant as Richard, and Gloria DeHaven is cute and charming as his timorous girlfriend Muriel. Walter Huston is at his reassuring best as Richard's wise and rock-steady father, while Frank Morgan plays the likable, avuncular family drunk who can never quite overcome his dependence on the bottle.The scenery is gorgeous, particularly in the opening scene as protagonists Richard and Muriel sing "Afraid to Fall in Love" to one other then go dancing off into a summery green field together - and also in the celebratory Fourth of July number "Independence Day," shot at the lush Busch Gardens in Pasadena.My one complaint is that the extended barroom scene in which Richard is lured into a night of drunkenness by the temptress bar-girl (Marilyn Maxwell) doesn't seen to match the wholesome tone of the rest of the movie.But it is the Harry Warren/Ralph Bane music that compels me to return for more and more re-viewings. (I must have watched this movie over twenty times since I first spotted it - then taped it - on TNT in the late eighties.) Honestly, I cannot fathom what drives certain reviewers to term the score as "uninspired" or a "dud" except perhaps that they have not listened to the songs enough times or with sufficient earnestness.A disappointing score? Quite the contrary. The Warren/Blane music is extraordinary - even those songs that meddling MGM executives chose to delete from the final version of the film. As it turned out, gorgeous numbers such as "Never Again," in which the rueful but determined Morgan character sadly recounts his battles with alcohol; the exquisitely haunting "Omar and the Princess"; Muriel's lovely confessional, "I Wish I Had a Braver Heart"; and Huston's wistful "Spring Isn't Everything" were inexplicably cut. (One needs to buy the CD soundtrack to hear those and other excised numbers.) Mere disappointment turned into artistic tragedy when a nitrate-vault fire in the mid-fifties destroyed the musical outtakes, rendering impossible any possible restoration of the film to the version envisioned by Warren and Blane. That huge chunks of the score were slashed from the film left Warren so embittered he refused to view the film for over thirty years.Perhaps, the critics should listen to the score a second, third, or fourth time, for a few of the melodies may strike some ears as somewhat subtle and may require repeated hearings. I remember being unimpressed the first time I saw the film and heard the score but have since come to adore the music. I'd categorize the uniquely delightful "Afraid to Fall in Love" as one of the songs that needs to be heard more than once to be fully appreciated.Despite the meat-cleaver cuts, what remains of the score makes for luscious listening. From the brief but tuneful overture while credits are rolling, to the winsome "Our Home Town" - extended opening-scene dialog set to music, to the rousing anthem "Dan-Dan Danville High," to the gloriously catchy "The Stanley Steamer," the music lilts. One of my personal favorites is "While the Men Are All Drinking," a brief number sung by the ladies as they organize their picnic food in the park while their men are off competing in an Independence Day beer-drinking contest and the children are off diving into a nearby pond.To my ears, the music is stunning beautiful and the reason I place "Summer Holiday" in my top ten, all-time-favorite movie list and why I consider Warren one of the top seven or eight composers of popular music that ever lived. He considered this score his best, and I enthusiastically concur.