Tout le monde chante

-Shy singer Danny Miller (Frank Sinatra) musters out of the army and returns home to Brooklyn. He ends up rooming with school janitor Nick (Jimmy Durante), while romancing music teacher Anne (Kathryn Grayson). A love triangle forms when Danny's acquaintance Jamie (Peter Lawford) comes over from England in order to try his hand in the music business.

There's a lot of music, and fans of early Sinatra will find much to enjoy. He attempts a semi-operatic duet with Grayson which was ill-advised. Grayson naturally gets a showcase operatic number late in the film during which the momentum screeches to a halt. Durante is amusing, and gets a couple of duets with Frank. Gloria Grahame makes the most of her small role as an army nurse at the film's start.

Enjoyed this picture from the beginning to the very end with great old time musical numbers sung by Frank Sinatra, (Danny Webson Miller) who returns from the Army after four years of service to his hometown of Brooklyn, New York and meets up with some of his old friends. One of the friends is Jimmy Durante, (Nick Lombardi) who really stole the entire film in almost every scene. Kathryn Grayson, (Anne Fielding) had such a fantastic opera voice and sang some very famous Classical musical numbers. It was enjoyable seeing Peter Lawford, (Jamie Shellgrove) give a great song and dance number and also a blooming romance between him and Anne Fielding. Even Gloria Grahame, (Nurse) gave a great supporting role as a nurse taking care of Danny while he was in the service and how he sort of remembers her at the very end of the picture. Great film, don't miss this great Classic from 1947. Enjoy.

"It Happened In Brooklyn" is so good-natured and cloying you can't help but like it. It's about a soldier (Sinatra) just discharged from the army after WW II to find a girl friend and a life. He disembarkation point is England, and after making friends with Peter Lawford, off he goes, returning to Brooklyn. From here the plot is so contrived it is hard to recount due to the lack of believability, and the story can barely drag its carcass from one song to the next, so shameless are the screenwriters.

But the songs. They are exquisite, written by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, and the main reason for my rating. Sinatra is in fine voice, and Jimmy Durante has been irreplaceable on America's stellar list of entertainers. "Time After Time', "It's the Same Old Dream" are two of Frank's better numbers, but the piece de resistance is Sinatra and Durante doing, " It's Gotta Come From The Heart". Priceless. There are a couple of opera numbers for Kathryn Grayson, so there is something for everyone in this picture.

It is a flag-waver and a preposterous tall tale, but it all works. All you have to do is wait for the musical numbers. And they are worth waiting for.

FRANK SINATRA's voice was in a warm and mellow tone when he did IT HAPPENED IN BROOKLYN and this little musical uses him musically in a nice way. He gets to warble an invigorating ditty as a serviceman joyous to be back in Brooklyn, so he belts out "Brooklyn Bridge" with baritone finesse. It almost sounds like a number out of ON THE TOWN. But it's his mellow rendering of "Time After Time" that brings back memories of how he crooned his way to stardom and became a teen idol in the early '40s.

Frank is a kind of shy guy here, but gets to loosen up after awhile thanks to the friendship of JIMMY DURANTE as a fellow Brooklynite, a janitor who lets Frank share his apartment until he can find a job. KATHRYN GRAYSON is the pretty girl Sinatra takes up with, both of them with singing aspirations. He even does a "Don Giovanni" duet with Grayson and it's not bad at all. Grayson does a nice solo spot on "The Bell Song" from Lakme and handles her acting chores in a pleasant enough manner. Likewise, even PETER LAWFORD gets to belt out a number for a bunch of record fans in a music store, loosening up to a little ditty called "Whose Baby Are You?" with a swing beat.

Durante and Sinatra have fun on a number called "The Song's Gotta Come from the Heart" and Sinatra is at his best crooning a ballad called "It's the Same Old Dream."

True, it's all rather formula as far as the storyline goes, but it's done in such an unpretentious way that it manages to charm most of the time. GLORIA GRAHAME has a small role at the beginning as a nurse from Brooklyn who doubts whether Sinatra hails from that borough.

I can't say much for the direction of Richard Thorpe. It moves at a snail's pace through its running time of one hour and forty-five minutes.

Very enjoyable musical romp. Wonderful songs and adaptations.

The stars bring us much to smile about. JIMMY DURANTE steals every scene he's in - even when SINATRA is with him. A great tribute to the magnetic personality of the great and good-hearted "snoz".

Young BOBBY LONG charms us with spectacular dancing and fresh voice in "I BELIEVE". Too bad we never saw him again. Show business is sure a tough business.

In the world of colorful musicals, the quiet charm of this one never leaves you feeling cheated just because it's in B&W.