A Song for Miss Julie

High Brow for the Low Brow

Impossible artsy fartsy movie that you feel was almost made for the upper echelons of the society with it's insipid comedy of manners of Southerners vs New Yorkers. A play is being written about an older actor. His Southerner granddaughter holds the rights to his estate, and is rather reluctant to give info about her grandfather to some visiting New York playwrights. This soon disintegrates into a full family relative comes forward with some new information. This story again, is all treated too stiffly and so hoity toity that this is impossible to like. The music numbers are laughably forgettable, and the acting is marginal, at best. For sadists only.

Elisabeth Risdon's grandfather was a well-known songwriter. Barton Hepburn and his wife, former fan dancer Shirley Ross, want to make a musical about his life. Miss Risdon has a contract with them to provide the true story. But she's not going to permit anything that will tarnish the family name. Given that her daughter, Jane Farrar, is in love with the show's writer, Roger Clark, she wants to help out.

While Republic Pictures could turn out some fine singing westerns and even the occasional putting-on-a-show musical, this is not particularly good. The music is mediocre, and the dance number appear out of nowhere to show off Alicia Markova's ballet dancing -- very nice, but what has it got to do with this show? The characters are likewise one-note. The only plus to this is Larry Ceballos' choreography, which is combined with some fine camerawork by Mack Stengler's team but it's not enough to make this very interesting.