A Flor do Pântano

Debbie Reynolds plays a 17-year-old girl from the bayou who goes to stay with a friendly pilot (Leslie Nielsen) and his society folks after her grandfather gets thrown into jail. Corny, yet also surprisingly sensitive growing-pains comedy-drama is silly and trite only in retrospect. The film treats its protagonist and her emotions quite sympathetically and the film is sweet without being nauseating. Good support from Walter Brennan, Fay Wray, and the always fun Mildred Natwick. Followed by two sequels in 1961 and 1963, with Sandra Dee taking over the role of Tammy, as well as a failed mid-'60s television series. **1/2 from ****

I saw this picture, right after seeing "Bundle of Joy," thus hoping for Debbie Reynolds patented radiance to be evident in this film as was the case with the former film. She didn't disappoint me. No one but Debbie could have performed Tammy any better (the song and the character). As to Leslie Nielsen, well, I saw a completely different side to his acting ability that we are not used to today. His chemistry with Debbie was nearly perfect. This film is about a young lady who has to move from the Louisiana Bayou because her guardian is taken from her. She falls for the son of her hostess and there are problems; but the rest is for you to discover. If anyone ever liked Debbie in anything, this is a must see. If anyone wants a romantic comedy to enjoy, this is a good pick. What makes Debbie so wonderful in all her pictures, is that she is able to use her facial expressions so well. They make the movie. You'll watch just to see them. This, like "Singin' In the Rain," "Bundle of Joy," and "Two Weeks With Love," show them perfectly. They are all quintessential films to watch her expressions in. They are often subtle, but if you watch close enough, you'll see them. And they'll make you all giddy and warm inside.

It's hard to believe that Debbie Reynolds did this movie 5 years after Singin' In The Rain. It seems like she should have played Tammy 5 years before Singin'.

Reynolds infuses some complexity in the role - check out her sly grin when Leslie Nielsen picks her up in the barn. It's a role that could easily have been annoying to audiences but Reynolds never loses a viewers affections. In the two sequels Sandra Dee came very close to crossing that annoying line.

Besides Reynolds, the other treat is the great cast around her. It was fun to see a young Leslie Nielsen in a straight role as the leading man and Mildred Natwick does her usual excellent job (why did she never get more Oscar recognition). Fay Wray, Walter Brennan, Philip Ober & Sidney Blackmer also do a great job.

The director, Joseph Pevney, should get credit for keeping the story moving forward and not getting bogged down in the corny aspects of the movie. Had i been more than 1 years old when this movie came out, I'm sure it would have been a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Debbie Reynolds like so many of contract stars was being cut loose from MGM and she sure was fortunate enough to get this film which turned out to be one of her iconic roles. Debbie Reynolds is really something special as the back woods bayou girl with an uncommon amount of common sense.

In her memoirs she had a lot to say about Tammy. First off she had to watch that crafty old scene stealer Walter Brennan playing her grandfather whom she lives with on the bayou. That man did not win three Oscars for nothing, but fortunately he's only in the film in the first 15 minutes before the revenuers clap him in the pokey.

At that point Reynolds takes up an invitation to stay with Leslie Nielsen's family. She and Brennan had rescued Nielsen from a plane crash near their bayou home on the Mississippi. She had a lot of problems with Nielsen as Leslie at the time was not the lovable oaf Frank Drebbin that we later got to know. He was a rather serious Method actor from New York and he and Reynolds did not mesh well. She took some satisfaction in her memoirs at pointing that at the time she thought Nielsen had a great gift for comedy if he'd relax and forget the Stanislavsky. And by God later on he did.

Finally she notes that the film was initially a flop. But later on she recorded the title song and got a Gold record for it. In the movie The Ames Brothers sing it over the title credits and Reynolds sings it during the film. The popularity of the record caused Universal to re- release the film and it was a smash.

Despite Nielsen's serious demeanor and Brennan's irrepressible scene stealing, no doubt this film belongs to Debbie Reynolds. 56 years after it was first release, Debbie will charm the pants off you in this role. Sad she never did the other two films, but even in this she was pushing it to play a bayou teenager.

But she succeeded, oh how she succeeded.

Plot—a backwoods southern girl is invited into a plantation manor after her father is sent to jail for bootlegging. The invite comes after she's rescued the hunky son from a plane crash. Now she's caught up in a humorous conflict of cultures while trying to adjust. At the same time, she pines for the son's affections despite his snobbish girlfriend.

Okay, after 70-some years of breathing my brain is turning to mush—Reynolds is charming, the song's cute, and I even enjoyed the suds this time around. Sixty years ago I hated the movie, but then I preferred rubber space monsters and Elvis's shaking' up the world. So I guess Reynolds and her song didn't really register. Truth be told, I still like Roger Corman's quickies and, of course, Elvis forever.

Nonetheless, in my now geezer opinion, the movie's a charmer, with occasional brain teasing moments. Tammy's a role the spunky Reynolds was born to play. Her sparkly innocence is winning from the git-go. Pairing her with the hunky Nielsen, however, remains a stretch. He towers over her like Tarzan in a spiffy suit. Still, her down-home truth-telling contrasts engagingly with the uptown sophisticates. I can see Peter (Nielsen) succumbing to her natural charm. But she's not all innocence. Behind her lack of education, Tammy has a perceptive inner eye, or a kind of backwoods wisdom. That compensates a lot for her amusing goofs in polite company. And catch the many innuendos I missed first time around. For example, when Tammy comes up with "of a carnal nature" while fending off masher Ernie's eager advances, I had to rerun the passage to make sure I heard correctly.

What also catches my eye this time is the subtle romancing of the ante-bellum South. The Brents represent the gentile side of the Old South transposed to the 1950's. In that sense, there's something of a nostalgia for the earlier time though it's not rubbed in. Then too, a contrasting note is sounded when Osia (Beavers), the Black cook, explains to Tammy the onerous meaning of her red bandanna headgear. So we're reminded of the Old South's not so gentile other side. And catch those colorful battleship cars. 1957 was about the peak year for showy fender fins that seemingly stretch into the great beyond.

Anyway, sociology aside, my age may be showing, but this time around I found the movie charming and occasionally insightful. So maybe something can be said said for geezer-years, after all.