Meus Seis Amores

For some reason, My Six Loves seems to have slipped between the cracks and just doesn't get shown on TV, at least not these days. In brief, it's the story of a show business star who takes a break due to exhaustion - and finds six basically abandoned kids living in her garden shed. Of course the story is going to be about her developing a relationship (or more) with them, I don't have to tell anyone that, it's a given.

There are some rather odd things about this movie that I'd like to point out, concerning one of the kids - a youngster named Billy Hughes Jr. who plays the eldest child and sort of the 'head' of the detached sibling family. Billy Hughes was becoming known in Hollywood for being able to play darker or more intense roles, and while parts of his role here fit him - being able to carry that chip on his shoulder towards God for instance - other parts are such a bad fit that it's painful to watch. There is a musical number where the kids each have to act out something that goes with the song, and young Hughes was clearly not comfortable doing this. As I said, it's painful to watch. It would be like asking someone like Humphrey Bogart to appear in the Do Re Mi song from 'Sound of Music'.

One rather ironic flaw to the movie is that the six kids Reynolds finds in her garden shed have been dumped and are penniless, wearing shabby old clothes... yet young Billy Hughes is sporting a dandy gold ring in 2/3 of his scenes! How that got past the director I can't guess but someone must have been kicking themselves big time when they realized the huge boo-boo of an impoverished kid wearing bling.

Debbie Reynolds was great, she always is. The story is pleasant enough and there have been far worse movies made (and better too). This is a real Hollywood oddity that somehow doesn't get shown anymore. Worth watching just to see it as part of Reynolds' body of work, and for Billy Hughes in his good and not so good moments of the film.

I don't quite know why I loved this movie, but I did! It had some great one-liners and everyone was perfect in their respective roles. Eileen Heckart was hilarious as the personal assistant to Debbie Reynolds and Mary McCarty and Max Showalter were equally hilarious as the beer-guzzling, welfare collecting and neglectful "step parents" to the kids. When they showed up in their broken down trailer, burping from drinking too much, the Reverand asked them "Can we help you?" Heckart looked up at him and said "Are you serious?" Alice Ghostley was also fantastic as the goldbricking "housekeeper" who was taking care of Debbie Reynolds' Connecticut house while Raynolds lived and worked in New York.

MY SIX LOVES was an entertaining family comedy from the 1960's that stars Debbie Reynolds as a musical comedy star who is sent to her country home after being told by doctors that she is exhausted and needs major time off. She and her assistant (Eileen Heckart)arrive at her country home and shortly after her arrival, Reynolds discovers six orphans secretly living on her property. The story is routine, the situations predictable and the story pretty much moves in the expected directions, but it's a relatively entertaining journey with Reynolds at the peek of her charm, receiving able assistance from Heckart, Cliff Robertson as a neighborhood minister, and a surprisingly funny David Janssen as her fast-talking agent. The kids are cute and work well with the star. It ain't Chekhov, but it will keep you awake for 90 minutes.

A romantic domestic comedy with songs, in glossy Technicolor (mainly set in Connecticut but which plainly never leaves the studio, even for the church fete or the bus ride), with surprisingly liberal lashings of God and rugged hunks David Janssen and Cliff Robertson both looking decidedly out of place amidst all this sweetness & light.

The rest of the adults include the voices of several cartoon characters, including Sterling Holloway (later Winnie the Pooh and and Kaa the snake) in an ironic unbilled cameo as a local who has lost his voice. It would all have worked much better with Doris Day, but fortunately there is also a quartet of cynical females, two of whom (Alices Ghostley and Pearce) later featured in 'Bewitched; which this rather resembles, minus the magic.

Wonderful little flick, with family values, warm fuzzies galore, pleasant moments, and real meaning. Funny and touching, with an outstanding performance by the ever cute Debbie Reynolds. Would never be produced today.