Being based on short stories that are still of much great enjoyment now and having people as talented as Debbie Reynolds, Bob Fosse, Hans Conreid and Bobby Van, 'The Affairs of Dobie Gillis' had all the makings of being good-natured fun and being very difficult to dislike.'The Affairs of Dobie Gillis' is not necessarily a great film by all means, with a very thin, often meandering and at times non-existent story that feels like several comic situations/stories cobbled together and not much else. While most of the film is very entertaining and achieves what it set out to do very well indeed, there is always going to be the criticisms that some of the situations are unbelievably silly and that it's dated, so suspension of disbelief is needed.Fosse doesn't look so comfortable in his role in the acting department and his personality doesn't shine as much as when he is dancing.However, 'The Affairs of Dobie Gillis' is very nicely designed and quaintly photographed. The music fits very well and is more than listenable on its own as well, the standout song being the heart-melting "All I Do is Dream of You". When it comes to the choreography and dancing, Fosse in particular scintillates in a routine that brims with energy, clever choreographic flourishes and extraordinary dance technique.Regarding the script, it is here very light and bubbly, never trying to do more or be more complicated than needed. A good deal of it is silly too, but has such a good nature and has its heart in the right place that it is hard to be too hard on it. The film moves quickly and never feels dull, because the energy of the cast and the pleasant atmosphere moves things along so well.Despite having mixed feelings on Fosse (loved the dancing, didn't look at ease in the acting), the rest of the acting fares well. Van is at his most likeably earnest, while Reynolds is spunky and charming and Barbara Ruick is suitably peppy. In support, an amusing Hans Conreid, firm Charles Lane and tyrannical Hanley Stafford stand out in particular. The direction is more than competent throughout, having the right lightness of touch.On the whole, not a great film but an enjoyably good-natured and easily watchable one. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Directed by Don Weis, this Max Shulman screenplay and story was made into a cute, light early 1950's Musical comedy by pairing Debbie Reynolds with Bobby Van, and Barbara Ruick with Bob Fosse, as college kids on the campus of Grainbelt University (obviously a Midwestern locale).The most memorable musical number is the oft-repeated "All I Do Is Dream of You" (the whole day through), which Reynolds had just performed, jumping out of a cake for Gene Kelly, the previous year in Singin' in the Rain (1952). Reynolds's character alternately appears to pronounce Gillis's name as either Dobie or Dopey, which seems more appropriate. Followed by a TV series with Dwayne Hickman and Bob Denver before he became TV's Gilligan.Pansy Hammer (Reynolds) enters college with the university's motto "work, work, work, learn, learn, learn" drummed into her head by her protective father (Hanley Stafford). That is until she meets Dobie Gillis (Van), who's come to college to have fun. Not so slowly as surely, he convinces her to adopt his carefree way.Ruick plays another girl, instantly stuck on Dobie, who's pursued and eventually learns to love Gillis's roommate Charlie Trask (Fosse). Hans Conried plays an amusingly arrogant English professor; Charles Lane plays a chemistry teacher. The young couple gets in real trouble after they start skipping classes to be together and Pansy, for the umpteenth time, blows up the chemistry lab when they're trying to makeup their work.After this last incident, against the protests of his wife (Lurene Tuttle, actress Ruick's real mother) and daughter, Pansy's father decides to separate the two lovebirds by sending his daughter to a college in New York, where she'll live with her Aunt (Almira Sessions). Charles Halton appears, uncredited, as the Dean of Grainbelt University. So, Dobie and his two friends try to figure out a way for him to make a trip to see Pansy in New York.After a failed book buying scheme (Percy Helton appears, uncredited, in the campus bookstore), brought about by Gillis's own plagiarism, Dobie finally ends up convincing the near defunct campus magazine manager (Archer MacDonald) out of $1,000 so that he can go to New York to hire a big-named band for a dance to save it. Since he spends almost half the money wining and dining Pansy in the Big Apple, he can only afford to hire "Happy Stella" Kowalski (Kathleen Freeman) and her German quintet.But this is a musical comedy, with some dancing by Van et al, so naturally everything will work out in the end ... after all, human nature means everyone rushes to see a train wreck (and will pay for the privilege), right?

This is the largely unknown and deservedly forgotten earlier incarnation of Dobie Gillis. Made in 53, pre-beatnik, therefore no Maynard Krebs character. In fact, the film is an unreal mixture of stale college comedy and sudden bursts of singing and dancing. Bobby Van plays Dobie and Debbie R. plays Pansy. Yeesh! Silly names and silly comedy. It does have plenty of familiar faces popping up here and there (Hans Conreid, Kathleen Freeman, Charles Lane, Percy Helton and even Alvy Moore). The story is non-existent; mostly to do with Van, Fosse and Ruick as slacker students only interested in college as a means to score with the opposite sex, but Van quickly goes after energetic student Reynolds and the others unaccountably follow. Throughout the film the leads switch from klutzy slackers to amazingly agile dancers, all part of the MGM fantasy world. Van is okay at times, but otherwise can't keep the blank grin off his face... or commit comic overkill when asked to react to some backfiring shenanigan. Fosse has little personality at all, until he explodes into expert dance work. Ruick and Reynolds are perky. A time-killer at best.

After I warmed up to the taller, goofier-looking Bobby Van (compared to Dwayne Hickman), this movie really took off for me. Like many others, I didn't know there was a movie six years before the TV series debuted. I'm only a casual fan of DG (it doesn't get shown enough these days) but still wanted to see how this early version compared to the show. I wasn't disappointed. I noticed a similarity between this picture and Disney's Merlin Jones movies. But whereas Merlin was this semi-genius, Dobie is an underachiever out for fun and females.Die-hard fans of Zelda will be crestfallen to learn that she is mercifully absent here. She is replaced by the much more feminine Debbie Reynolds, who ferments a good screen chemistry with Van; that's appropriate, as their most harrowing adventures take place in the chemistry lab (Pansy is fond of mixing assorted substances until they explode).But where is Herbert T. Gillis, Dobie's workaholic grocer old man seen in the series? He was my favorite character, mainly because of Frank Faylen's inimitable characterization (he was also hilarious as Dearborne in Disney's THE MONKEY'S UNCLE). Instead of Dobie's family we get Pansy's blustery workaholic father, who wants to separate the lovebirds forever. Has anyone else noticed, by the way, how fathers are perpetually portrayed as silly windbags, while the boring cipher wife/mother is forever made out to be the "wise" one? Even in the 50's.Strangely, it seems as though Dobie and Pansy only took two courses - English and Chemistry. And what about that chemistry prof, who boasts that his class is the hardest they'll ever encounter? Guess he never heard of Cartography at Radford U. After playing hooky (except when it rained) for several months, they return to class to find an essay due in English and a project due in Chemistry. I won't give away how they solve this crisis. But then the sky falls on our amorous pair. Deeming Dobie the worst possible influence, Mr. Hammer sends Pansy to NYC (blah - like that's the greatest place on earth to be sent) to live with her horrid maiden aunt. You really feel depressed for Dobie, now wandering aimlessly around campus. After all the scrapes they'd been through together - the chemistry lab explosions; the capsized canoe; and the most hysterical of all - Pansy's blouse getting caught in the car engine, then her trying to sneak past Ma and Pa and a couple of neighbors watching TV (yes, they had TV in 1953). Then when a gun goes off on TV, the startled viewers suddenly become aware of Pansy in her undergarments. That scene ended perfectly.All this brings us to some intriguing questions about college life in the 50's. Was it common for professors to write their own textbooks? We have the deliciously snobbish, condescending Hans Conried (Prof. Pomfritt) announcing that he is rewriting his "English Usage For College Freshmen", suddenly accepting Dobie's belief that the rules should be according to the way people really talk. C'mon, a single professor rewriting the rules of grammar? And did academic buildings really have bells to dismiss the students? Sounds like high school all over again. All classes beginning and ending at the same time. Well, I know one thing in the movie that's definitely based in reality: the way school bookstores buy back used books for pennies on the dollar, then resell them at a 90% markup. This textbook racket is still flourishing!Absent from AODG is Dobie's endless philosophizing in front of a marble statue. But I don't expect you'll really miss that.All in all, I recommend THE AFFAIRS OF DOBIE GILLIS to even the most casual fan of the TV series, and to anyone who likes college slapstick/romance from the 50's. I only wish this movie had been long enough to include more professors played by character actors on the caliber of Hans Conried. Or a series of 75-minute films, where Dobie and Pansy take Psychology, physics, French...imagine the constant jams they'd've been in and out of. I know Debbie Reynolds went on to bigger things, like voicing Charlotte in CHARLOTTE'S WEB and giving birth to Princess Leia, but she could've been replaced by some other bodacious 50's babe. And no, I don't mean Zelda.