"Seven Sweethearts" is about a journalist who travels to Holland, Michigan to do a story about tulip time there and falls in love. The owner of the hotel has seven young, lovely daughters, all with men's names, who live in an isolated little world of clogs and tulips. One of them is pretty Billie (Kathryn Grayson) with whom the jaded reporter falls in love. All the girls, with the exception of the ambitious, cold Reggie (Marsha Hunt) have boyfriends and are aching to get married. But tradition states that the oldest girl must marry first.
This movie seemed very long to me, strange, and somewhat boring. It's filled with B actors, with the exception of Heflin, Grayson, and character actor S.K. Sakall, who hands in one of the best acting scenes toward the end of the film when he has a confrontation with Billie. Grayson had a thin, fluttery coloratura soprano that nevertheless possessed some beautiful high notes and pianissimos, and she entertains throughout with songs and arias such as "Je suis Titania." She's good in her role. Heflin seems out of place but is quite likable.
For those who don't know, the oldest girl marrying first was and perhaps still is a tradition in many cultures. The ending is cute, but this is still a cloying film, and it's hard to believe that this family had no relatives in Holland that they were concerned about during wartime. I suppose the idea was to take everyone out of the war for a while.
