Two Sisters from Boston

High-C Susie! that's hilarious. and it's Abigail Chandler's stage name when she gets on stage to do her burlesky. Keep an eye out for Jimmy Durante doing his awesome shtick. He was a pro fer sure. fun to watch Durante work fun word-play into a song. When Abby's sister comes for a visit from back home, she tries to keep her from finding out the truth about her on stage performances. Kathryn Grayson and June Allyson co-star as sisters in this musical from MGM. Peter Lawford is in here as Lawrence Patterson. and Grady Sutton and Barbara Billingsly are in here as party extras, according to imdb. It's okay... it travels the line between comedy and serious period piece, and mostly succeeds. a funny number where she gets down to her bloomers and sings "after the show". i was never a big fan of either June Allyson or Peter Lawford, but if you turn down to high octave arias, the story is pretty good. I'll give this one an "okay". shows occasionally on Turner Classics.

Nice turn of the century film where Kathryn Grayson comes to N.Y. to sing in a joint. Her presence there threatens a scandal in her native Boston as her uncle is the Republican candidate for mayor of the town.

He comes with his wife to investigate and the fun starts. June Allyson is her sister and Jimmy Durante, the owner of the place where Grayson is singing. To save Grayson, Durante arranges for her to sing at the opera with the established Lauritz Melchior.

Peter Lawford, falls for Allyson but thinks that Grayson is having an affair with his father.

The picture becomes funny at times but needed technicolor to brighten it up.

Ben Blue is funny as a drunken waiter and Melchior shows some comedic gift here.

A pleasant film capturing the turn of the century musical traditions in America.

I saw this movie for the first time about 40 years ago and loved it. It came on TCM today and I was afraid I was going to be disappointed. NOT AT ALL!!! If anything it is even better than I remembered. The script is really tight; no loose ends. Silly? Of course, but what wonderful silliness. And there is some pretty clever humor. Some serious laughs. The songs for it are pretty bad, but how much fun it was when MGM took classical music and used it as opera arias. Melchior is astounding in that the voice is so huge and so sweet and his diction in English, impeccable. Durante is lovable even when he gets a bit annoying. And Grayson really had a beauty that is unlike anyone else's; her singing style is a matter of taste. But as is often the case, June Allyson steals the show just by being herself. Her soubrette number near the end is adorable and in its own way very, very sweet! This is what they used to call a family musical. Thank God for Turner Classic Movies.

A huge hit for MGM and Kathryn Grayson, the black-and-white film features a lot of classical music, Liszt and Wagner among others, with Jimmy Durante for comic relief. The always fresh-as-a-daisy June Allyson plays the other sister and balances Grayson's rebellious side, as she defies her puritanical family and shows her limbs on a turn-of-the-century vaudeville stage. Grayson has never been funnier than when she is disrupting the opera sequence from "Lohengrin" as the great Lauritz Melchior fumes his way through the aria. Musicals of this period may not be profound, but they are still a lot of fun to watch, especially when Melchior's dog hears "his master's voice" in a recreation of the earliest recording session. --from Musicals on the Silver Screen, American Library Association, 2013

"Two Sisters from Boston" (1946) is an amusing mix of romance, comedy, and music. MGM's Pasternak unit skillfully hedged its bets by offering opera (Wagner and Liszt are represented, but in English), music hall ribaldry, and plenty of "cheesecake" -- i.e., feminine legs on display.

Kathryn Grayson and June Allyson play two Boston sisters from an upright Back Bay family. The family isn't poor, but the paterfamilias (a suitably dour Henry Hayden) is notoriously stingy. One of the sisters -- Abigail, played by Miss Grayson -- is allowed to go to New York to study opera. But her skinflint uncle doesn't give her enough expense money to pay her rent, so Abby takes a part-time job in a Bowery saloon, where she stars as "High C" Susie, singing with Spike (Jimmy Durante) in low-comedy skits.

Word gets out, and the outraged Bostonians travel south to New York to check out the rumors for themselves. There, the younger sister Martha (June Allyson) confronts Lawrence Patterson Jr. (Peter Lawford), son of the opera impresario, and demands to know what's happened to her sister. Lawrence Jr. is clueless, but he is instantly smitten with Martha, and from that point on he makes it his business to see that her sister Abigail gets an opera audition.

There is a lot of sly humor involved -- Jimmy Durante, in probably the best role of his career, covers for both Abigail and Martha in between hilarious bits on the stage of his Bowery auditorium. Ben Blue, who early in the film shows up at the saloon and heckles Durante during his act, turns out to be a staid butler at the Patterson mansion. Durante recognizes him and discovers that he has amnesia except when he is drunk. In a hilarious scene, Blue slowly gets in his cups, then blurts out to the startled Patterson family: "She's High C Susie! She's the Belle of the Bowery!" and points directly at Abigail, who's about to audition for the opera. But Martha is standing right next to Abby, and she declares to the shocked gathering that SHE, not Abigail, is the true "Belle of the Bowery." Now she has to prove it.

All this, plus at least three operatic arias by the great Danish baritone Lauritz Melchior, and a happy operatic debut by young Abigail. Lawrence Jr. attends Martha's game attempt to substitute for the Belle of the Bowery, sees through the artifice, and falls deeply in love with her. At the end, Abigail is seen singing gloriously on stage in full operatic regalia, while Lawrence Jr. and Martha are nuzzling in the box seats.

And a great time was had by all.

Dan Navarro -- daneldorado93@yahoo.com