Magia d'estate

Many films are criticized for what they are not, rather than what they are. "Summer Magic" is not a critical, gritty look at the turn-of-the-century life in rural Maine. It is a good-natured, fun film that you don't have to worry about letting your children watch. Hayley Mills is a delight as the ever-optimistic Nancy Carey who misrepresents her family's situation in order to win the sympathy of Mr. Popham, a rural Maine postmaster, general store owner, sheriff, etc. who allows them to rent a house he doesn't own. The plot is complicated by the unanticipated visit of Nancy's snobby cousin, Julia, the dour nagging of Mr. Popham's doom-and-gloom wife, Mariah, and the ultimate arrival of the house's true owner at a most inconvenient moment. Burl Ives as the laconically good-natured Mr. Popham is a absolute treat to watch. And the climax of the film (which I won't reveal here)makes me laugh out loud no matter how many times I've seen it. Those looking for a good family film should look no further.

My sister and I discovered this movie at least 20 years ago, and fell in love with it instantly. It is just utterly delightful. Hayley Mills plays the oldest daughter of a newly impoverished family that moves to an old yellow house in Maine. Dorothy McGuire plays the widowed mother; Burl Ives is at his incomparable best in the role of Osh Popham, the town's general factotum married to what has to be the gloomiest woman in the state of Maine, if not the United States. Based on the book "Mother Carey's Chickens," by Kate Douglas Wiggin, the story was well adapted for the screen, maintaining the integrity and heart of the novel while making the cast a little more manageable. This truly is a feel good movie that you'll want to add to your collection.

I have fond memories of watching this movie on TV when I was about 7 years old. Looking back on it now, it's pretty typical Disney family-fare from the early 60s. Hayley Mills is cute, as usual, as the older sister in the Carey family. Eddie Hodges is not bad either as her brother. Burl Ives is enjoyable. His "Ugly Bug Ball" sequence with little Jimmy Mathers is cute, corny and memorable. Deborah Walley is fun as cousin Julia, and it's fun to see her and Mills irritating each other. There are some cute songs in here, by the Sherman brothers, but you have to wonder what they were thinking when they wrote them. In addition to the aforementioned "Ugly Bug Ball", we have two of the oddest inclusions in the Disney catalog: "Femininity" (where Walley and Mills teach Wendy Turner how to act like a woman!) and "The Pink of Perfection" (Mills' and Hodges' duet, in reference to Walley's snooty character).

Harmless, good, clean fun for the most part, but not in the same league as "Mary Poppins".

This and other films such as "The Three Lives of Thomasina" are shining examples of why Disney's classics are always ten times better than the mindless live-action kiddie dribble that even the Disney companies make today. "Summer Magic" is a fun and pleasant film about two teenaged cousin girls and their amusing rivalry after they both move to the country with their family. One is a care-free country girl and the other is a prompt and prissy city gal. It's fun to see these two ladies come-of-age in all aspects from having to share a room to throwing a party just to get to know the handsome new school teacher (the story is also a lot more interesting to watch than most of today's teen flicks). Hayley Mills is of course the highlight of the film stealing every scene that she's in, a talent she displays in several other Disney films. The rest of the cast is just as charming which makes the movie charming itself. If only Disney could go back to making movies like this instead of making more Mighty Ducks sequels.

The decade that brought us the First World War may seem an odd subject for nostalgia, but "Summer Magic", like "On Moonlight Bay" from a few years earlier, is a film which tries to persuade us that, whatever may have been happening on the battlefields of Europe, the 1910s (or the "Ragtime Era" as many Americans called them) really were the time of a kinder, gentler America. (It is, apparently, a remake of a 1938 film called "Mother Carey's Chickens", which I have never seen). Margaret Carey, a recently widowed mother from Boston, is forced to move out of the family home when she discovers that her late husband was the victim of a fraudulent investment scheme. She and her three children, Nancy, Gilly and Peter, relocate to the small town of Beulah, Maine, where they rent a large yellow house. (Gilly- pronounced with a hard "G"- is a boy, not a girl. The name is presumably short for Gilbert, but this is never actually made clear).

There are two main plot lines. The first revolves around the family's friendship with Ossian ("Osh") Popham, the agent for their rather mysterious landlord Mr Hamilton. The kindly Osh is more than just a letting agent; he is also the town's storekeeper and general odd-job- man. The second plot line deals with the visit of the Careys' spoilt, snobbish cousin Julia and the mutual dislike which grows up between her and Nancy, especially when they fall for the same man.

This was the fourth of six films which Hayley Mills made for Walt Disney Productions. Hayley was, of course, originally from England, but during this period of her career was most often cast (as here) as an American, even though she had trouble managing a convincing American accent. (Here she attempts to sound more American by shortening the long "a" vowels, but this only makes her sound closer to Boston, Lincolnshire than to Boston, Massachusetts). This did not, however, affect her popularity, and she became possibly the most popular teenage star of the sixties. In Britain she tended to be cast in more serious roles ("Tiger Bay", "Whistle Down the Wind", "The Chalk Garden"), but most of her American films were comedies, of which this is a good example. It is also a good example of just what made Hayley so popular in her day- her wonderful liveliness and vivaciousness, combined with a gift for conveying sweetness and innocence. By 1963, when she would have been seventeen, she performed a sort of dual role for Disney. To the older generation she was the daughter they wished they had. To boys, she was the girlfriend they wished they had, a sex symbol in the nicest possible way.

Dorothy McGuire, looking much younger than her 47 years, is good as Margaret, as is Deborah Walley as the insufferable Julia. The other performance which stands out, however, is from Burl Ives as the warm- hearted, if occasionally devious, Osh. Ives had originally made his name as a folk-singer, but later became a successful actor, both on Broadway and in the cinema. I had previously associated him with serious dramas such as "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "The Big Country", but here he shows that he could do light comedy as well.

The film is also a musical with several songs, although none of them rally stand out apart from "The Ugly Bug Ball", which was a favourite of mine as a child. (I had no idea at the time that it was from a film). The plot at times becomes a bit hard to follow, especially the various machinations involving Osh and Mr Hamilton, and the ending seems a bit too abrupt. Overall, however, the film's cheerful atmosphere and the contributions of Mills and Ives make this a watchable example of warm- hearted Disney family entertainment. 7/10