Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Micitype Pretty Good

Spoonatects Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

GarnettTeenage The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

jjnxn-1 Musicalization of Ah! Wilderness is okay with Mickey one of the oldest high school graduates you'll ever see. This was a huge flop upon release and coupled with Rooney's next film Words and Music, also a significant money loser, it signaled the end of his reign as a box office champ and a long slide until he reemerged as a character actor in his up and down career.It's the supporting cast of Huston, Morgan, Selena Royale and Marilyn Maxwell that make the picture worth seeing. Agnes Moorehead, who looks great in the period costumes, is wasted in the part of Cousin Lily which has been reduced from the original.Even though it's O'Neill's only comedy the original has touches of drama and pathos all of which have been drained from this. Still a pleasant film with gorgeous color and MGM's accustomed quality production values, the clothes in particular are beautiful, but as musicals go this is minor with no memorable songs nor dances.

Steffi_P MGM is known for producing some of the finest musicals in the 40s and 50s. The Arthur Freed production unit typically put together high calibre teams of the best stars, writers and directors. Summer holiday features Mickey Rooney, an experienced musical star who was also adept at comedy and a good actor to boot, music by popular songwriters Harry Warren and Ralph Blane, a screenplay by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett (It's a Wonderful Life) adapted from a Eugene O'Neill play and direction by Rouben Mamoulian, a director with a somewhat patchy record but whose forte was in musicals. This ought to be good.Unfortunately Rooney was past the peak of his career, and he is not best used here in any case. It wouldn't be surprising if the actor, by now in his late twenties, was starting to get fed up with being Hollywood's perpetual teenager. As it is, he gives a rather daft, cartoonish performance, lots of ape-like gestures and walking with his bottom sticking out, a constant caricature of an eager young man. This may well be the sort of thing that was intended. The costume department has fitted him with ridiculous baggy trousers, making him look a real prize prat. I know he is supposed to be a boy on the verge of manhood, and that this is supposed to be a comedy, but this clownish look is simply in the wrong vein.I'm not familiar with Eugene O'Neill's Ah Wilderness! so I'm sure how much of it has survived in Summer Holiday. Going by the other work of O'Neill's I do know, which is usually quite literate and rather edgy, I'd guess not very much. Goodrich and Hackett have done a good job of injecting some jokes that only work cinematically (such as Walter Huston suddenly realising how Rooney's speech is going to develop) and the picture is worth a giggle or two. At times it rallies for American conservatism to an extent that is almost self-parody, and it's hard at times to decipher exactly what message the movie is supposed to be given. My guess is that while it was seen as acceptable to go all out on bashing socialism, some of O'Neill's other libertarian views have been excised or toned down, attacking the one thing blindly without offering any sort of alternative. There are here and there hints of a message, but it's all a bit vague really. I'm not denouncing or advocating any particular politics here, just saying that this smacks of disorganised screen writing.Director Rouben Mamoulian brings some nice touches to the musical numbers, having the actors move from place to place as a song progresses, moving rhythmically to make a dance out of ordinary actions. There's a truly sublime moment during the school song where the film segues into a montage of living recreations of Grant Wood paintings. It's not quite perfect; while most of those images are naturalistic nods toward the original pictures, the rendering of American Gothic is far too literal, and as such it's a bit false and jarring. This is perhaps Mamoulian's biggest fault at this time. He didn't have the good taste to know when to tone down an idea.And the fact that Summer Holiday does seem to rely a lot of visual tricks does in many ways betray its weaknesses as a basic work. Even the songs by the promising pairing of Warren and Blane sound like rejects from Meet Me in St Louis. There are some good things about it – some nice ensemble pieces, Walter Huston's steady performance – but as a whole piece it is rather disappointing. Creative minds don't always merge to best effect, and putting together a dream team doesn't always guarantee spectacular results.

buzz_swanson "Summer Holiday" is a summer treat that has become an annual ritual at our house. I never fail to slip the video tape into the VCR as May morphs into June and the last days of school are rolling into summer vacation.Mickey Rooney is exuberant as Richard, and Gloria DeHaven is cute and charming as his timorous girlfriend Muriel. Walter Huston is at his reassuring best as Richard's wise and rock-steady father, while Frank Morgan plays the likable, avuncular family drunk who can never quite overcome his dependence on the bottle.The scenery is gorgeous, particularly in the opening scene as protagonists Richard and Muriel sing "Afraid to Fall in Love" to one other then go dancing off into a summery green field together - and also in the celebratory Fourth of July number "Independence Day," shot at the lush Busch Gardens in Pasadena.My one complaint is that the extended barroom scene in which Richard is lured into a night of drunkenness by the temptress bar-girl (Marilyn Maxwell) doesn't seen to match the wholesome tone of the rest of the movie.But it is the Harry Warren/Ralph Bane music that compels me to return for more and more re-viewings. (I must have watched this movie over twenty times since I first spotted it - then taped it - on TNT in the late eighties.) Honestly, I cannot fathom what drives certain reviewers to term the score as "uninspired" or a "dud" except perhaps that they have not listened to the songs enough times or with sufficient earnestness.A disappointing score? Quite the contrary. The Warren/Blane music is extraordinary - even those songs that meddling MGM executives chose to delete from the final version of the film. As it turned out, gorgeous numbers such as "Never Again," in which the rueful but determined Morgan character sadly recounts his battles with alcohol; the exquisitely haunting "Omar and the Princess"; Muriel's lovely confessional, "I Wish I Had a Braver Heart"; and Huston's wistful "Spring Isn't Everything" were inexplicably cut. (One needs to buy the CD soundtrack to hear those and other excised numbers.) Mere disappointment turned into artistic tragedy when a nitrate-vault fire in the mid-fifties destroyed the musical outtakes, rendering impossible any possible restoration of the film to the version envisioned by Warren and Blane. That huge chunks of the score were slashed from the film left Warren so embittered he refused to view the film for over thirty years.Perhaps, the critics should listen to the score a second, third, or fourth time, for a few of the melodies may strike some ears as somewhat subtle and may require repeated hearings. I remember being unimpressed the first time I saw the film and heard the score but have since come to adore the music. I'd categorize the uniquely delightful "Afraid to Fall in Love" as one of the songs that needs to be heard more than once to be fully appreciated.Despite the meat-cleaver cuts, what remains of the score makes for luscious listening. From the brief but tuneful overture while credits are rolling, to the winsome "Our Home Town" - extended opening-scene dialog set to music, to the rousing anthem "Dan-Dan Danville High," to the gloriously catchy "The Stanley Steamer," the music lilts. One of my personal favorites is "While the Men Are All Drinking," a brief number sung by the ladies as they organize their picnic food in the park while their men are off competing in an Independence Day beer-drinking contest and the children are off diving into a nearby pond.To my ears, the music is stunning beautiful and the reason I place "Summer Holiday" in my top ten, all-time-favorite movie list and why I consider Warren one of the top seven or eight composers of popular music that ever lived. He considered this score his best, and I enthusiastically concur.

Wayne119 If you are a fan of Mickey Rooney, or if you loved "Ah, Wilderness!" (1935 movie) and "Take Me Along" (Broadway musical version of "Ah, Wilderness!"), you will find this version of Eugene O'Neill's only comedy worth seeing.Mickey Rooney is in both films. In "Summer Holiday," he does a good job as the older brother, but I liked him better as the little brother in the 1935 movie. Butch Jenkins plays the little brother in "Summer Holiday" (the Mickey Rooney role in the 1935 movie). Somebody must have decided the role was not cute enough, so they gave poor little Butch a lot of extra lines and cutesy costumes. Remembering Mickey's robust performance in the earlier version, I found Butch embarrassing.The music in "Summer Holiday" is not very inspired. "Take Me Along" has better songs. I don't dislike "Summer Holiday." It just doesn't live up to my expectations of it.