Centennial Summer

This movie has always been a favorite one of mine. It is light-hearted and entertaining. It may be an escape movie, but it does deal with the different personalities in a family. The music and costuming are a treat. It is a very uplifting movie experience. I wish that it would be released on video.

After many years of hoping, I finally got to see "Centennial Summer" this past weekend. I purchased a DVD copy from Lovingtheclassics.com. Clearly it was an old transfer print, not the greatest quality but not bad. Some scenes were brighter than others but overall it was average but far from poor in quality. The sound was fine. It's a bare bones DVD, however. No menu or extras.

I understand that the company Twilight Time was going to release a restored Blue Ray edition of this film back in September, but they ran into legal problems with the rights. Hopefully, they'll get this situation straightened out soon as I'd love to see a restored print of this. The Technicolor must be stunning!

"Centennial Summer" is an enjoyable, nostalgic film, clearly 20th Century Fox's attempt to emulate the success of MGM's "Meet Me In Saint Louis" of 1944. This Fox effort is not as lavish and it's less a musical than a film-with-songs. It was based on a novel, which I have read, about a year in the life of a Philadelphia family in 1876, when the city hosted the Centennail Exposition, a world's fair celebrating the 100th birthday of the USA. The screenplay compresses the time line into just the summer of that year and eliminates much of the quirky Philadelphia local color and lore that are sprinkled through the book. Still, the film evokes the fair itself and the excitement it creates in a far more slowly paced era. The costumes are lovely and the charming sets are full of accurate period details.

The film stars a typical line up of popular Fox stars of the mid '40s. Lovely Jeanne Crain and dark, sensuous Linda Darnell are the sisters competing for the attention of a visiting Frenchman, Cornel Wilde. The largely forgotten William Eythe, who died young, plays Darnell's neglected suitor. Although he was a talented singer, he and the rest of the leads are dubbed by other performers, a common practice at the Fox Studio. Walter Brennan and Dorothy Gish are amusing as the parents and Constance Bennett makes a glamorous turn as exotic Aunt Zenia, whose visit from Paris causes much disruption in the family's quiet life.

The score was Jerome Kern's last and it's charming and easy on the ears if not particularly memorable. Cotton Club singer Avon Long turns up do a minstrel tune with some children in a saloon scene. It's probably the film's musical highpoint. Director Otto Preminger was not noted for musical films, although he directed a couple. He keeps the somewhat rambling plot moving and the film is colorful and evocative.

It will be great if this lively, charming film gets wider circulation in a restored print soon.

Perhaps the best thing about Centennial Summer is it's story and the way it's acted; it's just a light family drama-comedy and a love triangle, but the characters and plot have a bit of novelty and bite that keeps them fresh rather than cliché.

In the acting department, what's most interesting is Walter Brennan and Dorothy Gish. Rather than his usual crusty old man and/or comic sidekick, Brennan convincingly plays a husband, father, working man. Sometimes I like to conjecture about might-have-been casting choices. I suspect that his role was written with Don Ameche in mind, but Ameche had recently left Fox in a contract dispute. This is the only sound film role in which I've seen Dorothy Gish; she shows she has the acting chops, gravitas, and a nearly identical voice as her film-great sister, Lillian.

What's disappointing about this musical is that most of the songs seem unimaginatively inserted into the plot, rather than integrated as part of the story. After well integrated musical films like "Meet Me In St. Louis" and Fox's "State Fair" this is a backward thing. And Centennial Summer seems about 3 songs short; I noticed a couple of obvious places in the script where songs would be expected but were not there. The song "I Woke Up With The Lark This Morning", used in the early part of the film where it belongs, is also used to end the film, where a more appropriate song is called for. Apparently, Jerome Kern was not able to provide a full complement of songs (due either to poor health or his death) but the filmmakers ought to have adapted and used appropriate songs from his very large catalog.

I loved this film and I am disappointed it hasn't been out on DVD or on TV. I thought the music was great and I still hum it. I thought "All through the day was such a pretty song. Jeanne Crain was so beautiful and so was Linda Darnell and I miss them both. All of the great movie stars are gone My mother took us to this movie when we were little and it has stuck with me all of this time. Cinderella Sue was so sweet and cute. I also loved Cornel Wilde, he was so handsome. I will be the first one to buy this if it comes out on DVD. I do have a CD with the music from the movie, but its not the same as seeing the movie. I read the movie lineup every week in the TV Guide to see if by some wild chance it would be played, but nothing.

Despite the setting, the story really focuses on two sisters--nice sister Julia (Jeanne Craine) and her B****y sister, Edith (Linda Darnell). When Aunt Zenia (Constance Bennett) arrives from France with her step-son, Philippe (Cornel Wilde), Julia falls for the guy. Seeing her sister is smitten, Edith decides to try to steal him away for herself. What follows are some mistakes where both Julia and Philippe assume the worst and you wonder if by the end of the film they'll end up together. Along for the ride are her parents (Walter Brennan and Dorothy Gish).

The film has quite a few songs--mostly which are pleasant and forgettable. But unlike the very similar "Meet Me in St. Louis", instead of one person doing most of the songs, everyone gets in on the act, though a few of them have weak voices. In fact, in many ways this is like Twentieth Century-Fox's answer to MGM's "Meet Me in St. Louis" (both coincide with a huge exhibition in town)...though in pretty much every way the Fox effort is inferior. I especially disliked Darnell's character--she was awful. In the other film, the family loved and cared about each other...and this was not the case with Edith. It's not a bad film but by comparison it suffers significantly. Enjoyable but nothing outstanding.