The story begins down in the bayou in Louisiana. Tammy (Debbie Reynolds) lives there with her grandfather (Walter Brennan) and she knows nothing about life outside her little part of the world. When a pilot unexpectedly drops in (literally), Tammy falls for Peter Brent (Leslie Nielson) but their time together is rather brief. He has to get back to his society family as well as his fiancé. But, when Tammy is left alone when grandpa is sent to jail for moonshining, she goes to the city to stay with Peter and his family.The story is a sweet little romance film. Audience members will very likely guess how it all will end...but the journey there is so pleasant you really won't mind. Excellent writing and acting and direction make this a sweet story...one well worth your time.

Debbie Reynolds plays a country gal, Tammy, raised on a houseboat next to a river by her moonshinin' pa Walter Brennan. In an early scene, Tammy bemoans the fact that she's never seen her "complete self" in a mirror. Somehow she knows all the tricks to modern makeup however. As I was watching the film, I kept wondering how it would have played if they had actually cast somebody who looked or felt even remotely like a hillbilly. But this film exists in some kind of Pollyanna time warp, its down-home Americanisms pushing skinny Debbie Reynolds into the over-sized and outdated shoes of Mary Pickford where they are unsurprisingly uncomfortable. Leslie Nielsen's performance is a study in generic male appeal with no real personality. He's a male ingénue and not given much of any chance to do any of the interesting things we now know that he's capable of. The rest of the cast features some pleasing turns from veterans like Brennan and Fay Wray, but the whole enterprise is soaked in mawkish sentiment, a sort of worshipful attitude towards naiveté. Absolutely nothing unpredictable is allowed to happen, and there are few genuine laughs. The film's only redeeming quality, for those not already intoxicated with the talents of Debbie Reynolds, is the colorful set design and costumes which are captured faithfully and unimaginatively by Arthur Arling's photography. This is basically a movie for people who like TV. If you watched "Wonderful World of Disney" every Sunday night back in the 70s, then you might enjoy this completely vanilla film. The less said about the film's middle section, where Tammy and the rest of the members of the household dress up as Antebellum stereotypes -- including the maid in a red bandanna mammy outfit -- by the far the better. You might find yourself, like me, with your mouth agape that a film so bland and so deliberately inoffensive could actually be so vile. It's not as if the film-makers weren't aware of what they were doing and, "oh it was a different time" -- if that were the case, they would not have put that little scene where Tammy and the maid discuss how distasteful the whole thing is. Tammy could have said something about it and took a stand, but she's not really the heroine that all the characters in the movie make her out to be. She's just another movie naif who we're supposed to adore, for no particular reason except that she's Debbie Reynolds in pigtails.

A fine film, Tammy and the Bachelor reveals that "B" films often give us more than their bigger, more glossy cousins. Notice what's good about Tammy and the Bachelor, and you will find that nearly everything about it is well-done. First, its script: almost fully visual, it develops three distinct, well-defined characters through set pieces in its first quarter hour, telling us everything we need to know about each -- including personal relationships, all of which are healthy though fully human. There's an absence of sinister intent, malice, self-loathing; Tammy has normal, natural human needs which she expresses with a degree of self-respect which would be disdained by a filmmaker today as naive. Setting is filmed beautifully, simply, naturally well-lit, visually interesting, full of the character which defines the personalities (Tammy the swamp child, Peter the affluent southern gentleman.) Acted superbly: there is no hamming, no larger-than-life glamor which would ring false. Withal, of course, there is little conflict in the film: only Tammy's adolescent coming-of-age in a modern world. But wait: what larger theme is there? All right -- this is not Scenes from a Marriage; Tammy cannot compete with Cabiria; the directing is not David Lean's, and the budget is not Cleopatra's. Reynolds is not Monroe and Nielsen is not Brando. But put them together with Walter Brennan and Fay Wray and a good script and a good cinematographer and the result is this film, which has its own light and sentimental rewards. And a great title song, one of the gems of 1950's screen musings.

5 years after "Singin' in the Rain," Debbie Reynolds cemented her standing in Hollywood and make herself even more likable to her fans, with her role of "Tammy." Tammy lives with her grandpa, played by Walter Brennan, on his boat in the Mississippi swamps. Being one with nature from a young age, she has come to know that material things do not make one happy, but instead a deep relationship with her bible and God. She has had a quiet yet very contented childhood, but only just lately she has been yearning for someone to swoop down and get her and wondering if anything will ever happen to her. Life and love hit her in the form of Leslie Nielsen, when his plane crashes close by. He leaves them after he has recovered, not knowing he's taking her heart with him. I could tell you more, but suffice it to say she is brought into his upper-crust world and brings a breath of fresh air with her. If you love Debbie Reynolds and her buoyant personality, then this is a must for your list of films to see. The film may seem at times to be too simple and undemanding, but then again that's its appeal. It's a very fulfilling and uplifting little film. An added plus is seeing Debbie Reynolds singing, "Tammy," a very sweet song, which became a big hit for her own singing career. Costarring Mildred Natwick, who is yearning to break free from Leslie's eccentric family, this is a feel-good film that can be seen on TCM from time to time. If you miss it, it's your loss, and it's the reason why there's a smile on my face today. I can still see Debbie looking out the window singing, "Tammy, Tammy, Tammy's in love...."