"Holiday In Mexico" (1946 MGM starring Jane Powell and Walter Pidgeon, and also Illona Massey, Xavier Cugat, and Jose Iturbi was in important movie in 1946, the high water mark year for movie house attendance in the USA (average person went to movies 2x weekly that year), before TV and the Draconian 1948 "Supreme Court Consent Decree" which ended movie studio ownership of movie houses kicked in.
The color in this movie.....even on a small TV screen....is unforgettable.
So is the acting, the glamor, and the sensuous sexiness of the main actresses, including then 17 year old (playing a 15 year old) Jane Powell, the lead actress always seducing and laying implied sexual claims to her dear old US Ambassador To Mexico Dad, wonderful low key, high class, brilliant actor Walter Pidgeon (see him in "Forbidden Planet" in the 1950's and in "Funny Girl" in the late 1960's....the man never gets old, always plays "Dad" to young adult women).
The movies made from the end of WWII to 1948 by MGM are gaudy, colorful, and noisy, always wonderful and edifying, and "Holiday In Mexico" (1946 MGM) is an example.
It's a "wow" movie, for sure.
Entertainers and musical artists on the MGM payroll of those times included concert pianist Jose Iturbi and band leader, Xaviar Cugat and his trademark Chihuahua dog (that dog gets an ECU closeup and talks human words in this movie!).
Wonderful, wonderful music in this movie include Jane Powell singing snippets of Jeanette MacDonald's great 30's movie solo songs, and also wonderful piano concert music with great visuals part of the Jose Iturbi segment.
Compare the more famous, but not necessarily better "Date With Judy" (1948 MGM) and "American In Paris" (1951 MGM) movies, which also had Jane Powell ("Judy") and solo wonderful visuals during great piano concert music ("American in Paris").
"Holiday In Mexico" is a winner.
For me, the appearance of classy lassie Illona Massey from Hungary as the love interest of Walter Pidgeon is a high point of the movie....whatta woman......where are these types now, when guys like me need them (guys like me always needed them!)? Beautiful, intelligent, sexy, available, user-friendly, highly educated and cultured, well dressed, available, not pushy, wonderful in ways I can't count, and nobody can.....an ideal woman in the movies...often tried, never done as well as Illona did it.
Plays a Countess in this movie, and acts like one...a good one, a virtuous and worthy one!
Teen ager Roddy McDowell plays Jane Powell's neglected boyfriend and is terrible in this movie.
He has the Mickey Rooney role, and blows it totally.
Well, nobody is perfect and no movie is perfect.
Roddy kept this movie from being perfect.
The pitch of his forever exasperated voice is higher than Jane Powell's his supposed girlfriend in the movie.
Scotty Beckett did a great job with the Mickey Rooney role in "A Date With Judy" (1948 MGM) two years later, with Jane Powell playing the same role as the pushy, saddle shoe wearing "modern teen age woman" with a concert singer's voice (we never saw Jane's great dance abilities until "Royal Wedding" and "Seven Brides For Seven Brothers" after she got old enough to vote!).
See "Holiday In Mexico" (1946 MGM). You won't be sorry!
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Written by Tex Allen, SAG-AFTRA movie actor and movie history teacher at the college level.
....Tex Allen's email address is TexAllen@Rocketmail.Com.
See Tes Allen Movie Credits, Biography, and 2012 photos at WWW.IMDb.Me/TexAllen. See other Tex Allen written movie reviews....almost 100 titles.... at: "http://imdb.com/user/ur15279309/comments"
The color in this movie.....even on a small TV screen....is unforgettable.
So is the acting, the glamor, and the sensuous sexiness of the main actresses, including then 17 year old (playing a 15 year old) Jane Powell, the lead actress always seducing and laying implied sexual claims to her dear old US Ambassador To Mexico Dad, wonderful low key, high class, brilliant actor Walter Pidgeon (see him in "Forbidden Planet" in the 1950's and in "Funny Girl" in the late 1960's....the man never gets old, always plays "Dad" to young adult women).
The movies made from the end of WWII to 1948 by MGM are gaudy, colorful, and noisy, always wonderful and edifying, and "Holiday In Mexico" (1946 MGM) is an example.
It's a "wow" movie, for sure.
Entertainers and musical artists on the MGM payroll of those times included concert pianist Jose Iturbi and band leader, Xaviar Cugat and his trademark Chihuahua dog (that dog gets an ECU closeup and talks human words in this movie!).
Wonderful, wonderful music in this movie include Jane Powell singing snippets of Jeanette MacDonald's great 30's movie solo songs, and also wonderful piano concert music with great visuals part of the Jose Iturbi segment.
Compare the more famous, but not necessarily better "Date With Judy" (1948 MGM) and "American In Paris" (1951 MGM) movies, which also had Jane Powell ("Judy") and solo wonderful visuals during great piano concert music ("American in Paris").
"Holiday In Mexico" is a winner.
For me, the appearance of classy lassie Illona Massey from Hungary as the love interest of Walter Pidgeon is a high point of the movie....whatta woman......where are these types now, when guys like me need them (guys like me always needed them!)? Beautiful, intelligent, sexy, available, user-friendly, highly educated and cultured, well dressed, available, not pushy, wonderful in ways I can't count, and nobody can.....an ideal woman in the movies...often tried, never done as well as Illona did it.
Plays a Countess in this movie, and acts like one...a good one, a virtuous and worthy one!
Teen ager Roddy McDowell plays Jane Powell's neglected boyfriend and is terrible in this movie.
He has the Mickey Rooney role, and blows it totally.
Well, nobody is perfect and no movie is perfect.
Roddy kept this movie from being perfect.
The pitch of his forever exasperated voice is higher than Jane Powell's his supposed girlfriend in the movie.
Scotty Beckett did a great job with the Mickey Rooney role in "A Date With Judy" (1948 MGM) two years later, with Jane Powell playing the same role as the pushy, saddle shoe wearing "modern teen age woman" with a concert singer's voice (we never saw Jane's great dance abilities until "Royal Wedding" and "Seven Brides For Seven Brothers" after she got old enough to vote!).
See "Holiday In Mexico" (1946 MGM). You won't be sorry!
-----------------
Written by Tex Allen, SAG-AFTRA movie actor and movie history teacher at the college level.
....Tex Allen's email address is TexAllen@Rocketmail.Com.
See Tes Allen Movie Credits, Biography, and 2012 photos at WWW.IMDb.Me/TexAllen. See other Tex Allen written movie reviews....almost 100 titles.... at: "http://imdb.com/user/ur15279309/comments"