Cinzia

At first it turned me off, some, because it is so innocent and golly-gee-willickers. Father is manager at Dingle's hardware store. As it turns out it's so sweet and cute it's irresistible. Boasts a refreshing sense of humor, family sensitivity, excellent characters and acting. The contrast in attitudes between mother and father works really well. What a marvelous mother-daughter relationship. The acting is tops: Taylor, of course, parents, the schoolboys and Elizabeth's cousin; and my favorite, the music teacher. This movie will make you feel.

Elizabeth Taylor seemed to go almost overnight in films from child to voluptuous young woman. But in this nice low-budget (for MGM) movie, made when she was 15 at most, there is something of the sweetly awkward colt about her, in the title role. There are scenes in which she sort of oscillates between childhood and adulthood--the visual equivalent of an adolescent's voice cracking--and it was in this movie that she got her first screen kiss (from an engaging James Lydon).

It's a bittersweet movie, about the deferrals and compromises that one has to make in life--the parents who don't continue their higher education, the soldier who resumes his, the refugee professor. As Cynthia's mother, Mary Astor brings her usual warmth and common sense, and there are vague echoes of her questing, yearning character in "Dodsworth." Cynthia's illness is used as something of a metaphor for domestic discontent, and in view of Taylor's chronic health problems is a little unsettling in retrospect.

Elizabeth Taylor in the title role plays an overprotected 15-year-old who has lengthy bouts of illnesses seemingly due to a compromised immune system. She yearns to do normal teenage activities, but keeps having these setbacks related to her illness that constantly worry her parents (played by George Murphy and Mary Astor) and her doctor uncle (played by Gene Lockhart). Their strategy to prevent the illnesses from happening is to isolate her from her friends at school, have her come straight home, and forbid her from participating in school activities. Of course Cynthia is not going to be a wallflower forever, because this is a young Elizabeth Taylor here and the one thing she does not suffer from, even at 15, is awkward teenager syndrome compared to most. Noticing this right away is Ricky Latham (played by Jimmy Lydon, who was not the Zac Efron of the 40's, but somehow managed to play Taylor's love interest in "Life with Father" as well), who looks past the sicknesses and sees a beautiful, smart, charismatic young girl that just needs to get out of the house. Noticing this as well with jealousy is her cousin Fredonia (played by Carol Brannan), who has eyes on Ricky also, despite the fact she has a boyfriend of her own. Eventually, Cynthia's mother realizes that babying her will never teach her to overcome her problems, and hatches a plan with her daughter to get her to the Prom without Dad and Uncle knowing. Elizabeth Taylor shows her acting is beyond the capabilities of most other teenage actors of her day, but still displays the girlish charm of someone coming into her own. The movie has a fair amount of fretting and whining, but it does come out of it with some fine comedic scenes throughout the film and underrated performances from the supporting cast.

All of the reviews seem to be about Elizabeth Taylor, but very little mention about George Murphy and Mary Astor. Murphy almost sleepwalks his way through the film. Sixteen years as a clerk in a hardware store without a raise? Really? Where's the gumption, the backbone in the character. Is Napoleon so small a town that he can't find a better job somewhere else? A better actor would have shown some bitterness as being denied the opportunity to become a doctor. Mary Astor was going to be a concert pianist. Surely these failures of ambition can't simply be blamed on the sickly child that was born to them.

I came into this film on TCM at 6:15 AM one morning, about 1/4 into it so I missed the opening and establishing of the players backgrounds and motivations, and I did not 'get them' until the denouement. The motivations of the mother and father as well as the uncle as the doctor and his family, are the engine that drive the plot. However, the directors job, once he has a decent story, is to elicit emotion of varying kinds from the audience. If you want to look at and watch Liz Taylor in all her youthful glory and magnetism, this is one of the best. Ironically if forebodes her complete life as a great actress who has health problems all her life. This film took me up and down several times much to my amazement and has a great Hollywood, happy wrap up. (nothing wrong with feeling good especially at 6 A M). Yes, of course there are some problems but I watch films for the way they make me feel in the end, not specifically to be a critic, especially films of this genre and contrived time period. I loved it because it made me feel alive and real!!We all have felt these same emotions in our youth and this well done film allows us feel these once more.