La farfelue de l'Arizona

Although not a note of the song is sung, The Second Time Around gets its title from the song Bing Crosby introduced in High Time the year before this film came out. However Frank Sinatra scored the big hit on that song and the melody is heard throughout the film.

It's a cute film, but sadly not cute enough for me. Debbie Reynolds a recent widow comes out to Charleyville, Arizona to get a job in a mercantile when she finds the owner being shipped out in a pine box. He was a friend to her late husband and now she's stranded in Charleyville in 1911 on the eve of Arizona becoming a state.

Thelma Ritter gives her a job on her small ranch and pretty soon gambler Steve Forrest and neighboring rancher Andy Griffith are panting after Debbie. But Debbie who is disgusted by the lack of law and order in the town gets the sheriff recalled and gets his job.

A great blow for women's rights, but so help me I couldn't wrap my mind around the concept that Debbie who was such a tenderfoot when she came out west is now handling a six gun like a gunfighter. It was really a bit much.

Debbie and Thelma Ritter worked well together and they would do so again in the much better How The West Was Won. Juliet Prowse has a nice part as Steve Forrest's saloon dancer girlfriend who is remarkably tolerant of her new rival.

I don't think The Second Time Around is first rate for Debbie Reynolds and the rest of the cast.

Film buffs love to say Debbie Reynolds is 'underrated' as an actress--but most of her fluffy output from the 1960s look suspiciously like Doris Day cast-offs. Finally, in "The Second Time Around", she gets a sparkling comedy, a disarming concoction with Reynolds in good form as a widowed mother of two who relocates to Arizona in search of work and ends up the new mayor of a tumbleweed town. Sharp script, colorful supporting work from Andy Griffith, Thelma Ritter, Juliet Prowse and the reliable Steve Forrest, and a fine sense of atmosphere and nuance makes this one of Debbie's best comic vehicles. *** from ****

This certainly is a very unusual film--and its being so different is a big plus. The film begins in the East and the widow Lu Rogers (Debbie Reynolds) and her children are living with her mother-in-law. However, Lu wants to go out and earn her own money and find a place of her own for her family, so she takes up on an offer by an old family friend to move to Arizona (about 1912) and work for him. However, when Lu arrives she learns that the man is dead...and she is without any prospects. But a woman (Thelma Ritter) feels sorry for her and agrees to take this city girl on as a hired hand.

Along the way, two men (Andy Griffith and the rakish Steve Forrest) vie for her hand. She also has a bit of a small feud with the local sheriff...that ends up erupting into an all-out war! Can this nice little lady manage to survive all this?!

The film is, more than anything else, fun...along with being unusual. It's hard not to like the film and Reynolds is at her spunky best. Well worth seeing and as much different from a typical western as you can find! Cute and clever.

Say what you like about Debbie Reynolds, she gave each of her roles everything she had. Here she throws herself into the part of a widowed mother of two who who moves to Arizona and becomes an unlikely Sheriff.

Also unlikely is Steve Forrest as a leading man for a major, wide-screen motion picture in color in 1961. Forrest actually does a creditable job, but Reynolds buries him. He never stood a chance.

Also among those present is Andy Griffith, peddling the same laid back southerner soft soap he tried on in Mayberry and Ritz cracker commercials. Reynolds is caught between tricky saloon owner Forrest and goody-goody Griffith.

It has a few innovation, such as a brawl, not in a saloon but an ice-cream parlor.

From her first big break in "Singin' in the Rain" until her ultimate decline, Reynolds was wonderful. But this story was too slight (as were her co-stars) to merit the big-screen treatment. It would have served Reynolds better as a huge musical opposite a singing star. Or a Robert Preston type.

Still, it's not a total disaster. It's just not "special" enough (nor funny enough, nor anything enough) to justify the treatment it got. It's basically for people who can't get enough of Reynolds in the upper end of her cute-as-a-button phase.

I remember seeing this movie at the theater and thoroughly enjoying it. I would very much like to see it again and cannot understand why it is not available. I loved Debbie Reynolds, of course, but Thelma Ritter as always is truly splendid as are all other cast members. Steve Forrest is a handsome romantic lead with Andy Griffin and Juliet Prowse creating a colorful background. The whole concept of a very proper young Boston widow with two adorable children trying to make a new life in the West working as of all things a ranch hand makes for most enjoyable entertainment. Why is this movie not available for purchase on DVD?