One of my favorite things about these 1950's movies showing family life, high school students and so forth, is getting a feel for what things were like back then. I've seen so many movies that did a decent job of portraying that scene, but this movie is just a total flop. I don't even know where to start. I could have sworn that Alan Reed Jr. (Calvin) and Molly Bee (Julie Ann) were pushing 30 by the time they made this movie; I was more than surprised that Reed was 22 and Bee was only 18. (I have to say, if she looked like that at 18, she was HOT. But she didn't look like a real 18 year old in the film.) The Julie Ann and Calvin characters look and act like the world's oldest teen-aged couple you ever saw, like 18-year-old 40 year olds (or is that 40 year old 18-year-olds?). Oddly their school friend Woody looks more suited to a high school role than they do, and he was 27 at the time of the filming. This would have made a lame situation comedy for TV, and it's nowhere near up to being a credible feature film of even 'light fare'. The story is shallow, the 'funny' parts are not amusing, the annoyed father is clichéd, the mother makes TV's Donna Stone and June Cleaver characters look downright intense. The actor who played the father, Bill Goodwin, died a few months after the movie was released - IMDb says he had a heart attack but I suspect it was from embarrassment at having been in this turkey.
If you want to see a 50's story with more realistic characters, Blue Denim is but one example of an engaging film where you actually believe that the characters could exist. Granted, Blue Denim is much more a drama, but it also gives a believable portrayal of life with engaging characters. Nobody however could be so dull and dreary as anyone in this movie, nor could anyone's life be so boring and tedious as this. Watch as Julie Ann's mother talks her husband into letting their daughter go to to a basketball game in Reno! Watch as Julie Ann's father complains about Calvin spending an hour in the bathtub! Watch as Calvin freaks out over the fact that their honeymoon cottage has a BED! Watch as Julie Ann's mom offers to show her daughter how to cook a ham! Get the picture? I can sit through a lot of flotsam to get a nice view of the 1950's but this, well, this is just too much to survive. I'll be honest, there's about twenty minutes left and I can't make myself watch it, however fascinating it may be for Calvin to become an apprentice clerk at his father-in-law's hardware store. I just can't find enough of an excuse to finish it, and that is saying something. This movie lacks even the depth of a 1950's Dick York 'How to Be Popular' high school film. ZZZZzzzzz.
