The Second Time Around

Although not a note of the song is sung, The Second Time Around gets its title from the song Bing Crosby introduced in High Time the year before this film came out. However Frank Sinatra scored the big hit on that song and the melody is heard throughout the film.

It's a cute film, but sadly not cute enough for me. Debbie Reynolds a recent widow comes out to Charleyville, Arizona to get a job in a mercantile when she finds the owner being shipped out in a pine box. He was a friend to her late husband and now she's stranded in Charleyville in 1911 on the eve of Arizona becoming a state.

Thelma Ritter gives her a job on her small ranch and pretty soon gambler Steve Forrest and neighboring rancher Andy Griffith are panting after Debbie. But Debbie who is disgusted by the lack of law and order in the town gets the sheriff recalled and gets his job.

A great blow for women's rights, but so help me I couldn't wrap my mind around the concept that Debbie who was such a tenderfoot when she came out west is now handling a six gun like a gunfighter. It was really a bit much.

Debbie and Thelma Ritter worked well together and they would do so again in the much better How The West Was Won. Juliet Prowse has a nice part as Steve Forrest's saloon dancer girlfriend who is remarkably tolerant of her new rival.

I don't think The Second Time Around is first rate for Debbie Reynolds and the rest of the cast.

IIRC, women got the vote in AZ in 1912, so that'd mean they did their homework, but who cares. I love early 60's movies. Love Debbie Reynolds. It moved along at a good pace and all in good fun. Better than any flick produced in the past 10 years or more, in the good fun genre. Character actors include Andy Griffith being Andy. Thelma Ritter. Eleanor Audley (oft seen on old Lucy show, Bev Hillbillies, etc.), Marie Blake (Grandma on the Addams Fam). Best scene was when Lu (Debbie Reynolds) shot at a fellow in the street and he expired, watch it and see how. And fwiw I have mixed feelings about Andy G so it felt satisfying to see him punched into the crick, LOL.

Film buffs love to say Debbie Reynolds is 'underrated' as an actress--but most of her fluffy output from the 1960s look suspiciously like Doris Day cast-offs. Finally, in "The Second Time Around", she gets a sparkling comedy, a disarming concoction with Reynolds in good form as a widowed mother of two who relocates to Arizona in search of work and ends up the new mayor of a tumbleweed town. Sharp script, colorful supporting work from Andy Griffith, Thelma Ritter, Juliet Prowse and the reliable Steve Forrest, and a fine sense of atmosphere and nuance makes this one of Debbie's best comic vehicles. *** from ****

I remember seeing this movie at the theater and thoroughly enjoying it. I would very much like to see it again and cannot understand why it is not available. I loved Debbie Reynolds, of course, but Thelma Ritter as always is truly splendid as are all other cast members. Steve Forrest is a handsome romantic lead with Andy Griffin and Juliet Prowse creating a colorful background. The whole concept of a very proper young Boston widow with two adorable children trying to make a new life in the West working as of all things a ranch hand makes for most enjoyable entertainment. Why is this movie not available for purchase on DVD?

I'm willing to bet the movie "The Ballad of Josie" was inspired by this one, and it's yet another case of the first being the best.

This was a fun film, with Debbie Reynolds as a widow from the east who heads west (in the last days of that distinction, as it's 1912) to try and make a better life for herself and her two young children. She has quite a time (and a lot of hilarious moments) working as a ranch hand for Thelma Ritter, while attracting the attention of two very different men: saloon/gambling house owner Steve Forrest, a charming "bad boy" and ranch owner Andy Griffith, a "nice guy", though a bit too attached to his domineering mother (Blossom Rock, better known as "Mama," on "The Addams Family" and the sister of Jeanette MacDonald).

Debbie's also the only one in town brave enough to stand up to the corrupt sheriff (Ken Scott), a bit hard to believe with feisty Thelma around, and soon there's a petition circulated to oust him from his job. And guess who gets it???

That's where the flaws come in. While it's NOT TRUE that women couldn't sign petitions without the vote, that doesn't mean they'd want a woman as sheriff, unless she's lived out west all her life and had the right skills to qualify her, which Debbie did NOT. She proves this all too, soon, by using her badge to get the saloon shut down and Steve thrown in jail, out of spite for the way he tricked her into panning for gold so he could attempt to seduce her. Then, she gets kidnapped by the ousted sheriff, and that's where the silly brawls come in, as no comedy western can do without them, of course not!

That's what bugged me, there was more than one brawl incident, where windows are smashed, chairs are broken, tables tossed over, lots of property damage done, etc. Maybe some people find that entertaining, but most of the time it's just ANNOYING to me.

Like I said, fun but flawed.