On Moonlight Bay (1951) - film review

Within hours of the Winfield family moving into their new house in a small Indiana town, the daughter, Marjorie, has struck up a romance with the boy across the road, Bill Sherman.  No one could be happier at this development than the father, George Winfield, who has been wondering if he will ever be rid of his tomboy daughter.  Unfortunately, Bill regards marriage as an out-dated institution and loathes the entire capitalist system, especially bankers, which is unfortunate as Mr Winfield is vice president of the First National Bank.  As Bill goes off to college, Marjorie is left pining, and finds little solace in her new beau, a dull musician named Hubert Wakely.  When her one true love graduates, in the summer of 1917, Marjorie is devastated when she learns that he has enrolled in the army, to fight in the European War...

Tea for Two (1950) established Doris Day as Warner Brothers’ most valuable asset and the studio wasted no time reuniting her with her co-star in that film, Gordon MacRae, for another light-hearted musical comedy in the same vein.  Needless to say, On Moonlight Bay was a sure fire hit.  The film’s success was in part down to its cosy depiction of the kind of Utopian family life that most Americans liked to believe existed, even though it was manifestly a sugar-coated fantasy that is no more real than Dorothy’s adventures in the land of Oz.

Based on the popular Penrod stories by Booth Tarkington, the film consists of a series of amusing vignettes which alternate between Marjorie Winfield’s thwarted attempts to get married and her brother Wesley’s marginally more successful attempts to be a pain in the nether regions.  Whilst some may consider this film, and its sequel By the Light of the Silvery Moon (1953), to be saccharine and lightweight, it does have a great deal of charm, mainly on account of its uplifting musical numbers which evoke the ragtime period.  As ever, Doris Day and Gordon MacRae make a winning combination, whilst the very capable supporting cast (which includes the magnificent Ellen Corby of Grandma Walton fame) provides plenty of comic relief.

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