This delightfully silly musical comedy is a breezy hour of good humored humbug and hogwash, filled with fiddle dee dee, memories of sprawling magnolia trees, mint julips and porch swings. All set in the music world of Manhattan, which is actually south of... Albany. Record store phone girl Lynn Merrick is fired from her job for flirting too much over the wires, and meets up with the charming Robert Stanton for an impromptu date. Their joking around about old southern customs is overheard by fake southern colonel Thurstan Hall who decides to utilize their singing talents by changing her blonde from Brooklyn background to turn her into a singing southern belle, and after achieving success, she discovers that her made up heiress is actually the beneficiary to a huge estate. What's a phony belle from across the east river to do?
This outlandish plot is ridiculous, absurd and delightful. When Stanton and Merrick get together to sing the rousing "Alabamy Bound", magic is made There's the Mary Wickes/Eve Arden like Mary Treen dropping cracks, a few songs and a silly plot that just gets more complicated, yet fun to watch unravel. Hall takes over the type of lovable old codgers that Charles Coburn usually played, and while he didn't get an Oscar, he did manage to steal every scene he's in. I just love the name they give Merrick's micro managing boss, a puckered old maid named Miss Quackenfish. I'm glad I wasn't drinking anything when Hall referred to her as "Miss Silverfish". My TV would have been soaked!
This outlandish plot is ridiculous, absurd and delightful. When Stanton and Merrick get together to sing the rousing "Alabamy Bound", magic is made There's the Mary Wickes/Eve Arden like Mary Treen dropping cracks, a few songs and a silly plot that just gets more complicated, yet fun to watch unravel. Hall takes over the type of lovable old codgers that Charles Coburn usually played, and while he didn't get an Oscar, he did manage to steal every scene he's in. I just love the name they give Merrick's micro managing boss, a puckered old maid named Miss Quackenfish. I'm glad I wasn't drinking anything when Hall referred to her as "Miss Silverfish". My TV would have been soaked!