My Dream Is Yours

Doris Day in her second film role. and the awesome, versatile Jack Carson...rock hudson must have been busy that week. also Adolphe Menjou, S.Z Sakall, and even Franklin Pangborn; we see him in color, for once! he was the comedic sidekick for SO many black and white films, even with W.C. Fields. and the incredible, edible Eve Arden. check out Carson and Arden in Mildred Pierce, probably their best film ever. When the bigshot star won't renew his contract, they hire Martha, a single mom (Day). and then things get complicated. she's good, talented, and successful, but resents the time away from her kid. keep an eye out for Sandra Gould as the girl in the recording room... she was Gladys Kravitz in Bewitched. some fun scenery of hollywood and LA. its mostly fun, but towards the end, all of a sudden, we're all in a warner brothers cartoon; DD and Carson are dressed up in bunny silly outfits, and do a dance with bugs bunny. its pretty out there. and Gene Kelly would do it again in Anchors A-weigh, two years later. keep the other eye out for chester clute... he starts talking to Martha in the club, right near the end. but she's not listening. similar story to a star is born, where the younger singer's career is rising, while the older man's is waning.

One of the best of Doris Day's early Warner Brothers films is My Dream Is Your's. In this one she's a World War II widow with a young son who is also a singer looking for a big break in radio.

In a sense My Dream Is Your's was dated before it hit the theaters in 1949. That thing known as television was starting to spread across the land and someone looking for a break in radio that year would have had to have one's head examined. As many of radio's top personalities were moving to television, there were more opportunities in radio than ever before.

This film was done at the tail end of radio as it ended its thirty year run as an entertainment media. It took several years for radio to redefine itself as a news/entertainment media that it is today. Still the plot is a nice one.

Doris has two men to choose from here, an egotistical radio singer that makes the ladies swoon as Frank Sinatra did played by Lee Bowman and a talent agent who discovers Day and sticks with her played by Jack Carson.

Some of Doris's finest words of praise about her co-workers in her memoirs were written about Jack Carson. This part may have been closer to the real Carson than the usually egotistical blowhards Carson took a patent out on in Hollywood. Doris went out with him a few times in her early days at the studio and she describes him as a sweet, kind, lovable man who unfortunately drank a little too much. Her scenes with Carson show the real affection she had for him though.

Harry Warren made a return visit to the studio where he wrote so much lasting movie music in the Thirties. He wrote the title song which sold a few platters for Doris back in the day(no pun intended) and a few other new songs. Several of his old songs got into the film as well they should because the studio owned them already. One was a nice ballad called I'll String Along With You that Dick Powell introduced and Doris sang as a lullaby to her son. That record also sold pretty well for her. The new songs had lyrics by Ralph Blane.

Jack Warner, not to be outdone by Louis B. Mayer, got a couple of his animated stars to appear in My Dream Is Your's with Day and Carson the same way Jerry Mouse danced with Gene Kelly in Anchors Aweigh. It's done in a very charming child's dream sequence and not to be missed by animation fans of that wascally wabbit known as Bugs Bunny.

My Dream Is Your's also boasts one fine set of character players, as good as you'll find in any film. You can never go wrong with a film that has Adolphe Menjou, S.Z. Sakall, Eve Arden, and Edgar Kennedy all at their finest. This was in fact the farewell film for Edgar Kennedy and you can see how ill he is in his scenes as Doris's uncle.

Maybe if My Dream Is Your's had been done a year later we would have been talking about Carson getting Day a break on television. But the film would have been just as good.

In the late forties Warner Brothers brought out three glossy Technicolor comedies with songs starring Jack Carson which served to introduce to an appreciative public the fresh-faced charm of the young Doris Day before she was a virgin. Ms Day had already been promoted to second billing by the time she made 'My Dream is Yours', which was the second, and by far the least, of this trio; which has a very thin storyline and at 101 minutes is frankly too long, but is so packed with goodies you'll still have a good time.

Even if you're not a fan of Doris's singing (my own favourite of her numbers in this film was the brief hula 'Nagasaki' number) there's Carson himself and a dream supporting cast including Eve Arden delivering her trademark quips while wearing a number of killer outfits, Edgar Kennedy (in his last film), Franklin Pangborn, and even Bugs Bunny and Tweety Pie; although fourth-billed Adolphe Menjou (who gets less screen time than 'Cuddles' Sakall) is rather wasted.

No expense seems to have been spared on the studio scenes, while the second unit have provided a fascinating record of the Los Angeles of the period (including the Brown Derby and Schwab's Drug Store), all in Technicolor.

After the success of her first starring role in ROMANCE ON THE HIGH SEAS ('48), Doris is re-united with Jack Carson for another pleasant musical trifle with Doris as the girl singer Carson finds in order to replace conceited band singer (Lee Bowman) who refuses to sign another contract. Along for a few laughs are Eve Arden (more adept than usual with her punch lines) and S.Z. "Cuddles" Sakall, fracturing English and being generally amusing as a radio producer.

The only thing that lifts this out of the ordinary is the cartoon sequence using "Hungarian Rhapsody" as the music for the "Freddy Get Ready" sequence combining live action with the animated Bugs Bunny.

Other than that, if you like Doris Day, she has another tailor-made role as a band singer who gets to sing pleasant ballads like the title tune and adds some fresh appeal to the role of a girl Carson wants to turn into a new singing sensation.

A better than average little musical thanks to the performances of Day, Carson and Lee Bowman--as well as the always enjoyable Eve Arden.

The movie tells the story of Doug Blake (Jack Carson) as he searches for a new radio singer star in order to replace his conceited former friend Gary Mitchell (Lee Bowman), who has just refused to sign another contract. In New York Doug is spellbound by the singing talents of young war widow Martha Gibson (Doris Day). He brings her and her little son Freddy to Hollywood, where Martha and her manager Doug have to go through all the difficulties that an unknown singer has to face on the way to success. Gradually, Doug also falls in love with Martha, who however is more attracted by Gary Mitchell. We can't wait to see, of course, who will finally get the girl ...

The familiar story line (with a musician rising from being a nobody to being a well-known and recognized star) is often delivered in a boring and either over-sentimental or spiritless way by other movies of this kind. In contrast, "My Dream is Yours" combines an original, heart-felt story with a good script and excellent direction. And there is Doris Day at the age of twenty-five! She may already appear quite charming in some of the better-known comedies that were produced ten or fifteen years later. Here her performance is so delightful to look at and her singing so refreshing to listen to that I was overwhelmed. If you like Doris Day, you simply have to see this movie.