On Moonlight Bay
by Roy Del Ruth
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Doris Day, Gordon MacRae, Jack Smith, Leon Ames, Rosemary DeCampDirector: Roy Del Ruth
Brand: Warner Brothers
Cinematographer: Ernest Haller
Editor: Thomas Reilly
Producer: William Jacobs
Writer: Booth Tarkington
Writer: Jack Rose
Writer: Melville Shavelson
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: Portuguese (Original Language); Spanish (Original Language); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 95 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-04-10
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of On Moonlight Bay
Movie Review: A Wanna-be "Meet Me in St. Louis"
Summary: 3 Stars
Girl meets Neighbor Boy. Girl and Neighbor Boy fall in love. Neighbor Boy offends Father, Father throws Neighbor Boy off the porch. Girl cries, Father forgives Neighbor Boy. Girl and Neighbor Boy are happy. Neighbor Boy offends Father. Father throws Neighbor Boy out of house. Girl cries. Little Brother burns house down. Father stares at burnt down house, thinks about how he was once young, and forgives Neighbor Boy. Girl and Neighbor Boy are happy. The End.
There is the story of "On Moonlight Bay".
Okay, okay, so there's more to it than that. But almost hardly anything more exciting or redeeming. First off, just to exemplify the dokiness of this movie, say (out loud) "On Moonlight Bay with Doris Day and Gordon McRae." Seriously. Did they cast this film just so it all rhymed?
George Winfield `Father' (Leon Ames) has committed the worst possible sin towards his family. He has moved them two blocks away from their home to a bigger house. Even though the new home is closer to his bank, he insists that he moved them with his daughter, Marjorie `Marjie' (Doris Day) in mind--he wants to find her respectable suitors and turn her from a wild tomboy into a proper young lady. Ironically, the miracle occurs the very day that they move into their new home: Marjie stops her little brother, Wesley (Billy Gray), from shooting a gun in the neighbors' barn, but in the process, she herself shoots through the barn door, and the door promptly crashes down upon the handsome neighbor boy, William Sherman `Bill' (Gordon McRae). It only takes one lock of the eyes for him to forgive her as well as fall in love with her.
The rest of the story is a mess-pot of love letters, lies, tears, and...dishes crashing to the floor (to the dismay of opinionated, caring maid, Stella (Mary Wickes). Marjie and Bill begin a somewhat odd courtship, and not one that Marjie's father altogether approves of. In fact, Father begins to regret ever moving to the new house because of his daughter's affiliation with boys. Then again, if she'd only show more interest in the boys he picks out--the boring, dull, arrogant ones, that is. Despite her love for Bill and her history with tomboy-ish-nes, Marjie proves to be a rather weak lover. It seems like when she needs to stand up to her father's bullying, she merely allows herself to be tugged along, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Little brother, Wesley, is an entirely different matter. This boy is the devil in human child form. Sure, he's got a cute face and can sometimes make you smile, but in real life, this kid is what we call S-P-O-I-L-E-D. The biggest content issue also has to do with him. Make sure that any kid who watches this film knows that they could not get away with telling lies and breaking windows like Wesley did--that boy deserved a sound, square spanking. Instead, he actually got away with each bad thing he did without a word of reproof.
As far as other content issue, there is almost nothing. On their first night out, Alice Winfield `Mother' (Rosemary DeCamp) encourages Marjie to put two powder puffs in her bosom. While dancing, they fall out and are handed to Marjie by complete strangers (both men, I think). Bill tells Marjie that he doesn't believe in marriage, and she is convinced that he is right--they both agree that two people who are really in love should not be bound by conventional thinking (and yes, they end up getting married in the end).
This certainly isn't Gordon McRae's best, and probably the worst role I've seen Doris Day play. There are actually very few songs, and I can't even remember anything about the few that were in the film. I'm not sure if the plot revolves around Wesley and his horrible deeds or the rocky courtship between Marjie and Bill. I guess the best thing I can say about this film is that it's not too deep (and it is lighthearted). But overall, I would summarize it in this word: "strange". It's almost like an attempt to create a "Meet Me in St. Louis" spoof. If you merely have the goal to watch every old musical in the universe, add this one to the bottom half of your list. Or you could waste a few hours of your life and create your own opinion about "On Moonlight Bay" (with Doris Day and Gordon McRae).
Summary of On Moonlight Bay
sical about a family that moves to a small Indiana town and their tomboy daughter who begins a romance with the neighbor across the street, who bears radically unconventional views on love and money.America's love affair with clean-cut, tomboyish, freckle-faced Doris Day got a boost with On Moonlight Bay, a period piece from 1951. The film's masterstroke: put Doris in an old-timey musical full of small-town family values and vintage songs. Another inspiration: pair off Doris again with that chesty-voiced man's man and future Rodgers and Hammerstein stalwart, Gordon MacRae (they'd already made Tea for Two and The West Point Story). The story is drawn from Booth Tarkington's Penrod tales, although the movie is also under the sway of Meet Me in St. Louis. The WWI-era family is anchored by parents Leon Ames (the pop from St. Louis) and Rosemary De Camp, with echt-Fifties boy Billy Gray (later of Father Knows Best) as Day's bratty younger brother. Mary Wickes, cinema's eternal sassy housekeeper, provides comic relief. So does radio crooner Jack Smith, who would later host You Asked for It on TV for many years, as Day's maladroit suitor (he's really funny--too bad Preston Sturges never got a hold of him). The material is so relentlessly wholesome you might have to pinch yourself that anybody really believed it, but audiences sure wanted to. The film's popularity prompted a sequel, By the Light of the Silvery Moon, with most of the cast intact. --Robert Horton
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