Joy in the Morning

When I was a kid I'd rush home from school to watch the daily afternoon movie that came on at 4 pm. I'd been hooked on watching old movies quite some time by then!! This is one that I think about often but haven't seen since. My fuzzy brain cells can't remember but a few words of the theme song. I remember Richard's character singing it to Yvette's character. Anytime there is a beautiful morning, the melody of that song comes to mind, then what little bit I remember about the movie comes back also. I would really like to see it again and put all the bits and pieces together. I'm sure it's as good as I remember it being. It couldn't have hung into my swiss cheese memory if it wasn't a really good movie. Joy in the morning is about a guy in college and very much in love with a girl from the wrong side of the tracks. My grandmother had the Joy in the Morning bible verse in a cross stitched picture framed on her wall. I never quite got the connection between the verse and the movie plot but whenever I would happen to read it, I'd remember the movie. Funny way to learn bible passages, eh??

Under normal circumstances I love to hate movies like Joy in the Morning. I try to avoid watching romantic melodramas as much as the next well-adjusted person, but Joy in the Morning was surprisingly good. It's easy to sympathize with the young law student Carl Brown, whose parents turn into his worst nightmare after he marries a poor girl from Brooklyn named Annie McGairy. Carl's mother writes him a scathing letter and makes it clear that she thinks Annie is an opportunist and a gold-digger. Carl's villainous father actually shows up at the couple's home and after a shouting match with his son, withdraws all financial support. The couple's struggle to support themselves is austere and unsentimental. It's difficult to predict if they will stay together until the last ten minutes of the movie.

Richard Chamberlain is excellent as Carl Brown, but the movie belongs to the luminous Yvette Mimieux, who plays Annie McGairy. Though in the beginning of the movie Annie appears naïve and insipid, later on her earnest attempts at being a good wife are endearing because quite simply, Mimieux glows in front of the camera. Any other actress in the part of Annie would have been a disaster.

I remember seeing this movie on TV, probably the 4:30 Movie or The Million Dollar Movie. Being a pre-teen when I saw it for the first time, I was enthralled with the gentle love story. Richard Chamberlain was the most handsome man I had ever seen and I was in love the minute I saw him in this film. Betty Smith has been one of my favorite authors and this film and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn are on the top of my list of my all time best loved films. I had not seen this film since the early 70's, but it always stayed with me. Whenever I would talk to another 'film lover' this film was always mentioned. I am glad that TCM has shown it a few times over the year, and a friend taped it for me. I watch it whenever I want to be transported back to a gentler time and place. I feel like a teen-ager when I watch it. Just the BEST!!!

"Joy in the Morning" is a touching and revealing movie about the way Americans liked or wished to project their culture. Consider going back to 1965, the "American Dream" is being shaken and eroded several times by movies such as Peyton Place (1957), Summer Place (1959), Splendor in the Grass (1961), The Chase (1965)... We are about to loose our innocence as reports of fighting in a still obscure country in South East Asia are growing the news headlines. Any movie has to be enjoyed or critiqued in the context/era/location it was produced. I grew up in those insecure days torn between the "good ol' American Boy image" and that of a "Beatnik". For those who do not know or remember, we were not supposed to have any sexuality then. Good girls (and most good guys) were marrying as virgins, that is until Dr Kinsey came out with his shocking ground-breaking study on Sexuality that proved otherwise. Television and movies were heavily censored, violence was many times more acceptable than nudity. Sexual desires/acts had to be "hinted to" or assumed by it's consequences (such as babies) on the big screen.

Joy in the Morning is a melodramatic depiction of a reality that is unfortunately "too real" and "too common" as I would find out in my later years. The themes depicted, the tragedies and the conflicts are ageless and would be retold successfully time over (The Graduate 1967, Love Story 1970...). Despite what powers to be want us to believe, love is ... "what makes the world go round" and the only reason we are on earth for besides survival. We (man/woman) could not live a fulfilling life if it was not for love regardless of who it is directed at (spouse, family, friends...). This is why this movie did hit a sensitive area in my heart. It is refreshing to look at what life was supposed to be then with good production values, excellent music score, and the hope that one day, I too will find the right person for me.

Overall, Joy in the Morning is a sweet and realistic story of the times to enjoy with your loved one on the couch, sipping a soda and eating popcorn, like the good old days...

It's hard to sit down and enjoy 1965's "Joy in the Morning," a sentimental and melodramatic story about young marriage, without putting the film in context.

If you were a prepubescent girl or teen in the '60s, Richard Chamberlain was one of your dream men in the same way that girls adore Zac Efron now and my mother swooned over Tyrone Power. You had an intern shirt, you had the .45 of "Three Stars Will Shine Tonight" (The Theme from Dr. Kildare" with "Joy in the Morning" on the flip side), and you read fan magazines. And no one who watched "Dr. Kildare" can forget Yvette Mimieux's guest appearance on the show. I can still see her in the final scene of that episode.

So watching "Joy in the Morning," which might be considered a mawkish movie by some, is a trip down memory lane for us. It's about two young people from different social strata who get married and try to make it both financially and as a couple while the man is still in law school. It's actually a sweet story with some good performances - certainly an earnest one from Chamberlain, and from Oscar Homolka, Sidney Blackmer, and Donald Davis (as the "sissy" florist). Petite and beautiful Mimieux was one of the big '60s ingénues, and she does fine, though the character admittedly can get a little annoying. The Bernard Herrmann score, reminiscent of his music in "Vertigo," is instantly recognizable as Herrmann and very good.

Judging this film as if it's supposed to be "Citizen Kane" is like judging "High School Musical" on the same level as "No Country for Old Men." In its day, "Joy in the Morning," with Richard Chamberlain taking off his shirt, making out with Yvette Mimieux and talking about sex was geared toward young girls just learning the facts of life, and hoping that someone like Richard Chamberlain would teach them. Knowing the reality of that dashed hope today doesn't change the innocent memories that it brings back.