June Haver Movies

This lightweight 20th Century-Fox Technicolor musical stars Dan Dailey as Bill Carter, a widowed comic strip illustrator and June Haver as Jeannie, the title character, a glamorous Broadway star. When next-door-neighbors Bill and Jeannie fall in love, Bill's son Joe (Billy Gray) seethes with resentment. Fortunately, Joe's schoolmate (and erstwhile sweetheart) Kitty (Mary Jane Saunders) convinces the boy that the world would be a sorry place without couples, using Noah's Ark as an example. This provides the cue for an extended animated cartoon sequence, courtesy of UPA Studios (then under contract to Columbia: Fox's house cartoonists at Terrytoons weren't quite up to the assignment). Naturally, the film finds time for a few engaging song-and-dance interludes, performed by Dailey and Haver. What really makes The Girl Next Door click is the unforced camaraderie between Dan Dailey and little Billy Gray. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

I'll Get By is an updated remake of the 1940 20th Century-Fox musical Tin Pan Alley. William Lundigan and Dennis Day play William Spencer and Freddie Lee respectively, successful song publishers who make hits out of such numbers as "I Got a Gal in Kalamazoo", "Deep in the Heart of Texas", "You Make Me Feel So Young", "There Will Never Be Another You", and other favorites (the rights to all of these songs were conveniently held by 20th Century-Fox). The partnership has some hard times, especially during the feud between ASCAP and the radio networks, when only public-domain songs like "I Dream of Jeannie" were permitted to be broadcast. Still, Spencer and Lee remain pals throughout, while the boys' romances likewise weather the years. Steve Allen makes a rare film appearance as a wisecracking disc jockey (what a stretch!) while Harry James, Jeanne Crain, Reginald Gardiner, Victor Mature and Dan Dailey show up in uncredited cameos. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The short but colorful life of American musical comedy star Marilyn Miller is given the standard prettified Hollywood treatment in Look for the Silver Lining. June Haver, an accomplished dancer-singer in her own right, is well-cast as Miller, who rises from an appendage in her parents' vaudeville act to the toast of Broadway. Along the way, she suffers such personal tragedies as the wartime death of her first husband, songwriter Frank Carter (Gordon Macrae), but manages to smile through the tears and go on to even loftier showbiz heights. The film ends in 1936, the year of Miller's death; we last see her "giving her all" to her audience, while an offstage observer makes ominous comments about her future. The Phoebe and Henry Ephron/Marian Spitzer screenplay (based on a story by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby) glosses over Marilyn Miller's notorious prima donna behavior; she is shown lording it over the "little people" in only one scene, whereupon she is gently put in her place by the remonstrative Frank Carter. Charles Ruggles and Rosemary DeCamp co-star as Miller's vaudevillian parents, while Ray Bolger is his usual ebullient self as Jack Donahue; also on hand are S.Z. Sakall and Walter Catlett, recreating a scene from Miller's 1925 Broadway triumph Sally (Catlett had appeared in the original production). Look for the Silver Lining was produced by Warner Bros., the same company that released the real Marilyn Miller's three starring films back in the early days of the talkies. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Though the title sounds like something from a Big Band era tune, it actually refers to commands used during the training of mules. Young Snug Dominy has just purchased a pair of strapping mules. With no available cash, he must work for their previous owner to pay them off. Snug lives with his callous stepmother Judith, who spends all her time and attention with his stepbrother Stretch. This creates an escalating tension between the two youths that their father is unable to stop. Meanwhile, Snug toils long and hard to keep possession of his muleteam, as the farmer who owned them tries to get them back. Things get really sticky when Snug falls in love with the farmer's lovely daughter. Look very closely and see a young Marilyn Monroe paddling a canoe in one sequence. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

20th Century-Fox pulled its script for Three Blind Mice out of mothballs once more for Three Little Girls in Blue. June Haver, Vera-Ellen and Vivian Blaine are the blue-clad trio, searching for wealthy husband in Atlantic City in 1905. As in all other versions of this Stephan Powys story, two of the girls latch onto handsome young men who aren't as rich as they appear to be, while the third young lady falls for a seemingly nerdish chap who turns out to be rolling in dough. The menfolk in this yarn are handsome George Montgomery, handsome Frank Latimore, and nonhandsome Charles Smith. Taking its cue from the 1941 edition of this story (Moon Over Miami), Three Little Girls in Blue is a musical, with singing from Vivian Blaine and June Haver and dancing from Vera-Ellen. The story was good for yet another go-round in 1953: How to Marry a Millionaire. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this engagingly silly musical fantasy from the waning days of WW2, Fred MacMurray stars as Bill, who wants to serve his country but has been classified 4-F. While working at a local USO, Bill falls in love with the fickle Lucilla (June Haver, soon to be Mrs. Fred MacMurray), never realizing that he himself is worshipped from afar by the sensible Sally (Joan Leslie). Stumbling across an old lamp donated to a scrap drive, Bill impulsively rubs the lamp--and out pops Ali (Gene Sheldon), a bibulous, bumbling genie. Hoping to become a hero in Lucilla's eyes, Bill asks Ali to put him in the US Army. The genie complies, but gets his wires crossed, and Bill ends up in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. In short order, Bill meets two lookalikes of the girls in his life at "Ye U.S.O.", shows up at Valley Forge and trades quips with General Washington (Alan Mowbray)--who, in anticipation of MacArthur and Eisenhower, bombastically insists that he has no political aspirations--unsuccessfully tries to alert Washington of the duplicity of Benedict Arnold (John Davidson), and ultimately finds himself behind enemy lines with a troop of Hessians, whom he tries to hoodwink by delivering a Nuremberg-style speech, replete with "Sieg Heils." Arrested and sentenced to a Hessian firing squad, Bill again summons Ali, who whisks him off to the year 1492. In an elaborate "opera bouffe", Bill musically dissuades the sailors serving under Christopher Columbus (Fortunio Bonanova) from staging a mutiny, convincing them to continue seeking out the New World (as represented by a group of Cuban natives in a conga line). Once on dry land, Bill is entranced by a comely Indian maiden who looks a lot like Lucilla, only to be entrapped in an old-fashioned "badger game" cooked up by the girl's wily Native American boyfriend (Anthony Quinn). Buying his way out of an embarrassing situation by agreeing to purchase Manhattan Island for $24, Bill is then transported to "New Amsterdam" in the mid-1600s. In his efforts to persuade the local Dutch elders that he is the rightful owner of Manhattan, Bill succeeds only in getting arrested again. This time, however, the drunken Ali manages to zap our hero back to the 20th Century--with the 17th-century equivalent of Sally in tow. The songs, by Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin, are appropriately bright and satirical, but none are standouts. Still, Where Do We Go From Here? is one of those frothy 1940s concoctions that is absolutely impossible to dislike. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this touching drama, city-slicker Sparke Thorton goes to live on his aunt and uncle's horse farm in the country. The couple have basically retired from horse-breeding and only have one trotter left. Sparks fly when the young man meets the lovely Char and Cri-Cri, the two farm girls who introduce him to the finer aspects of country life including the cool pleasures of the swimming hole. He soon decides that he wants to raise a filly and become a champion racer. His uncle and the handyman help him. Much of the film was shot on location on racetracks in Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio. There is also a sequence depicting the filly's birth, but it is sensitively handled. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Sgt. Andy Mason Jr. (James Ellison) is on the eve of shipping out from New York with his unit -- he's the son of Andrew Mason Sr. (Eugene Pallette), a wealthy, blustery Wall Street financier. While paying respects to his father and the latter's business partner, dithering fuss-budget Peyton Potter (Edward Everett Horton), at the Club New Yorker, he spots chorus girl Eadie Allen (Alice Faye) and turns on the charm and all of the allure that the ne'er-do-well son of a Wall Street millionaire can muster. That, however, doesn't impress Eadie, who ignores his invitation so she can do her patriotic bit helping servicemen at the Stage Door Canteen (or, as it's called here, the "Broadway Canteen"). Realizing how down to earth and genuine she is -- exactly the kind of girl who doesn't care about his money or social position -- Andy shows a bit of the boyish innocence he has hidden beneath the arrogance that comes from his background of wealth and privilege, and also some humility, hiding that background and his real name. Before the night and their "date" on the Staten Island Ferry are over, they're genuinely in love with each other, but that presents a problem -- since age 12, Andy has been unofficially "engaged" to Potter's daughter Vivian (Sheila Ryan), who expects to marry him, and he can't quite bring himself to hurt Vivian by telling her that he's met someone else.

Flash forward a few months, and Andy is on his way home on leave, a hero in the Pacific, and his father is so proud that he has to do something special to honor him, trying to rent out the Club New Yorker for a party but discovering that it's closed for rehearsals of a new production. Suddenly, his fatherly devotion, patriotism, and Wall Street experience all click together -- he brings the entire performing company, plus Benny Goodman's band, up to his and Potter's adjoining estates in Westchester to stage their act for his upscale neighbors and friends as part of the biggest War Bond rally ever seen (minimum admission a new 5,000-dollar War Bond), and in the process giving his son the biggest party he's ever seen. This leads to more comic turns for Horton's Potter, as a man who would make coffee nervous -- especially around show people -- but delights his ex-dancer wife (Charlotte Greenwood). That's also how Eadie and Vivian end up at the Potter mansion together, comparing notes on their remarkably similar respective fiancés. When the show's star, Dorita (Carmen Miranda), lets the cat out of the bag, it looks like Andy may lose Eadie, who can't bear to lose Andy but also won't even try to take him away from Vivian, who loves him too, but has loved him a lot longer. But while they sort out their romance, the show must go on, and go on it does. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi