Lynn Wilde 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

Douglas Sirk directed this frothy musical comedy set in the 1920s starring Charles Coburn as Samuel Fulton, an elderly man with a multi-million dollar fortune. With no family of his own to whom he can leave his money, Fulton is pondering what to do with his estate. Years ago, he was in love with a woman named Harriet, whom he asked to marry. She turned him down and married another someone else, but he's still fond of her and considers leaving his millions to her family. However, Fulton decides to first give them a test. Posing as an eccentric and threadbare artist, he rents a room from Harriet (Lynn Bari) and her husband Charles (Larry Gates). He then arranges for an anonymous gift of $100,000 to be presented to them so that he can watch their reactions. Sadly, things don't go well; Harriet browbeats the rest of the family into moving into a mansion and tries to convince her daughter Millicent (Piper Laurie) to break up with her boyfriend, poor but good-hearted soda jerk Dan (Rock Hudson), in favor of a wealthier and more socially prominent man. Songs include "Tiger Rag," "When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob-Bob-Bobbin' Along," "It Ain't Gonna Rain No More," and "Gimme a Little Kiss, Will Ya, Huh?" James Dean has a tiny part as a customer at the soda fountain; it was his first appearance onscreen. ~ Mark Deming, 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

The beauteous blonde Wilde Twins -- Lynn and Lee -- star in the Republic musical programmer Campus Honeymoon. Richard Crane and Hal Hackett co-star as a pair of GIs who offer to pose as the sisters' husbands so as to qualify for a couple of bungalows in a Veterans' housing project. The relationship is supposed to be platonic, of course, but it doesn't remain that way for long. The laughs really begin to roll in when the ersatz honeymooners are obliged to produce their marriage licenses. Republic contractee Adele Mara contributes a zesty performance as a former WAC sergeant. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Beverly Ross (nn Miller) is a would-be radio personality, but the closest she gets to being on the air is running the switchboard at a local station. Worse yet, the blustery station owner Mr. Kennedy (Tim Ryan) wants no part of programming "jive" (i.e., swing music) that she loves, preferring the classics. But she manages to con Vernon Lewis (Franlin Pangborn), the host of the station's early morning classical show, into believing that he needs a vacation and slips into his time-slot at 5 am, where she starts running records by Bob Crosby's band, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Frank Sinatra in place of Beethoven and Mendelssohn. The soldiers at the local army base pick up on the new show, and two of them, wealthy candy company magnate Barry Lang (William Wright) and his former chauffeur Andy Adams (Dick Purcell, decide they want to meet this new disc jockey, and as luck would have it her brother (Larry Parks) is in their platoon and invites them to his home. But the two men decide to switch identities, Barry denying his wealth and pretending to be Andy, and Andy presenting himself as the candy heir Barry -- and as if matters aren't complicated enough for Beverly, coping with their antics, she has to fight to keep her radio show. But when the soldiers listening to her start writing in by the thousands, and Barry suggests she call her 5am show "Reveille," she takes it one step further and "Reveille With Beverly," and becomes a smash. But can she sort out the intertwining romantic overtures of the two men in her life? ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi