ON MOONLIGHT BAY: Blu-ray (Warner Bros., 1951) Warner Archive

Roy Del Ruth’s On Moonlight Bay (1951) is a fairly forgettable, yet quaintly permissible and passable turn-of-the-century yarn. Based on Booth Tarkington’s Penrod Stories, and with the overwhelming success of MGM’s Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) firmly in mind, Jack Rose and Melville Shavelson’s screen aims low, rather than high, merely to bottle and copy the trajectory of Metro’s infinitely more progressive movie musical, adding real ‘turn-of-the-century’ pop tunes into the mix for ‘authenticity’ and perhaps, hoping to disguise the fact their own effort bears little to no originality. That said, here is a movie that is as easy on the mind as it is disposable at a glance, while cleverly to tug at our heartstrings. And, with Doris Day as its star, definitely a superior all-around talent, the picture remains something of a heart-warmer, flush with fun and froth to spare. Day is Marjorie Winfield, a pert and plucky gamine who begins a wholesome-as-punch romance with the boy next door, William Sherman (Gordon MacRae). Will is a free thinker – unimpressed by material possessions and not terribly interested in marriage either; just two departures from the status quo that land him in hot water with Marjorie’s dad, George (Leon Ames), a die-hard capitalist banker who does not see his daughter’s future tied up in this impressionable upstart. At first Marjorie takes her father’s side. After all, she is ‘daddy’s girl’ and has her reputation to consider. Ah, but then there is Will – young, good-looking and cooing love ballads to sway and anesthetize her common sense. In no time, Will has completely won Marjorie over. Daddy is another story.

Apart from Charles Tobias and Peter De Rose’s ‘Love Ya’ – the rest of the score is a potpourri of turn-of-the-century traditional ballads, including ‘Till We Meet Again’, ‘Cuddle Up A Little Closer’ and ‘I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles.’ Featherweight and not nearly as impressive as MGM's aforementioned pastiche, on which – clearly - it is trying to piggy-back, On Moonlight Bay is nevertheless sweet, cordial and enjoyable at a glance, even if most of its ‘troubles’ are of the antiseptic ‘everything will work out in the end’ ilk. The Rose/Havelson script struggles for something to say between songs, merely to provide enough connective tissue to moderately sustain our interest, most of it, expertly realized in the scenes featuring Marjorie’s rather ingenious and beastly brother, Wesley (Billy Gray).  Gray, who entered the picture biz at the impressionable age of eight, to know, and mercifully, come out the other side of his own battles with its behind-the-scene hedonism, if, as a far more mature child star than any ought to be, is this movie’s fiendish delight. Whether long-suffering as a choir boy through a midnight’s clear recital of ‘Silent Night’ on Christmas Eve or using his penknife to deviously carve the rim loose from Marjorie’s aspiring suitor, Hubert Wakely’s (Jack Smith) straw hat, Gray possesses, or rather emits, a certain loose-moral – Peck’s Bad Boy – magnetism, perfectly to offset the otherwise saintly treacle frequently flowing forth from the rest of these anodyne dilemmas, particularly, elder sis’s sickly convoluted love affliction in her pursuit of romantic happiness with the right fellow.

The other tart-mouthed talent prominently featured herein is Mary Wickes, as the sharp-shooting housekeeper, Stella. In Wickes, we have one of those immediately identifiable and beloved stock players to grace many a Warner Bros. classic – and beyond – and whose pelican-like nose, gangling figure, and, inimitably sassy demeanor instantly branded her a sort of Eve Arden type, minus Arden’s statuesque looks and class. Wickes is of the ‘down to earth’ sort – her brass-tacks approach to life, part, if not all of her charm. Encouraged by her law professor to try her hand at drama, Wickes quickly found work in 1934’s The Farmer Takes a Wife, joining Orson Welles’ Mercury Players on the radio and later, reprising her Broadway role of Nurse Preen for Warner’s movie version of The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942). Her direct, but otherwise loveable wisecracking earned her a hallowed place in pictures, appearing in such diverse film fare as Bette Davis’ romantic melodrama, Now, Voyager and as Lou Costello’s romantic foil in the riotous comedy caper, Who Done It? (both in 1942). Today, Wickes is perennially revived as the busy-body housekeeper in White Christmas (1954). But she ought to also be remembered for her performances in 1966’s The Trouble with Angels, in hindsight, an excellent proving ground for her portrayal of Sister Mary Lazarus in 1992’s Sister Act (and its lamentable 1993 sequel), as well as her use as the live-action character model for Cruella De Vil in Disney’s animated feature, One-Hundred-and-One Dalmatians (1961), and as the nosy gossip in Meredith Wilson’s The Music Man (1962). As she aged, and arguably – withered - Wickes’ caustic nature slightly softened, her last plum part, that of another housekeeper, Marie Murkin in The Father Dowling Mysteries (1989-91). Breaking her hip while in hospital shortly after completing her role as Aunt March in 1994’s Little Women, Wickes was to, ironically, die due to complications from the surgery required to reset her broken limb. At the time of her death, Wickes was doing voice work as one of the gargoyles in Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), necessitating the hiring of long-time pal, Jane Withers to complete the work in her stead.

In her autobiography, Doris Day rates On Moonlight Bay among her markedly wistful film-making memories, not the least because of her symbiotic working relationship with co-star, Gordon MacRae. Born in New Jersey, MacRae, who won a singing contest at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York, by 1942, was off and running with a Broadway debut and lucrative recording contract. By 1945, MacRae had his own CBS radio show, and also played host to a half-hour radio anthology series, performing condensed versions of hit Broadway musicals. After his success in 1946’s Three to Make Ready, MacRae was signed to a Warner Bros. contract. Curiously, given his proven success as a singer, MacRae’s movie debut and subsequent follow-up were in heavy-hitting/noir-styled dramas. It wasn’t until 1949’s Look for the Silver Lining (1949) that he was allowed to sing for the camera. MacRae’s first teaming with Doris Day in Tea for Two (1950), - a rather clumsy reworking of Broadway’s showstopper, No, No, Nanette, was enough to cement their on-screen chemistry, and the pair were quickly reteamed for The West Point Story (1951) – the movie made just before, On Moonlight Bay (1951). Day and MacRae would appear together again in the studio’s all-star musical, Starlift (1951), and be reunited for a sequel to On Moonlight Bay - By the Light of the Silvery Moon, made and released 2 years later – but regrettably, more slight than sophisticated. If MacRae outwardly epitomized a seemingly effortless polish as the dashingly handsome all-American clean-cut stud, in private, he battled a hellish addiction to booze which may or may not have contributed to his cancer of the mouth and jaw. He died of pneumonia in 1986, a very weathered 64 years, far too young to die.

Following the ‘seasonal’ trajectory of MGM’s Meet Me in St. Louis, On Moonlight Bay tells the tale of the close-knit Winfield clan. Marjorie’s mother, Alice’s (Rosemary DeCamp) singular desire is for her daughter to forgo her boyish impudence and find a boy whom she can wed. As the family moves into their fashionably middle-class new home, the head of the family, George, grapples with the light-hearted and unprepossessing problems of his wife and children. Our introduction to Marjorie, dressed in a man’s baseball uniform, and beating a pack of kids by making an enviable home run, tells us all we need to know about this girl of ‘qualities’. She can hold her own in a man’s world. While most of her generation would find such behavior off-putting, neighbor, William Sherman thinks Marjorie is charming. Alice is exceedingly pleased by Will’s unlikely interest, but George fervently believes this young man is far too liberal in his flawed philosophies on personal wealth and marriage.  According to Will, one requires neither money nor a wife to be contented in life. From this inauspicious ‘cute meet’, the Rose/Shavelson screenplay takes an unexpected twist and prescient interest in Wesley and his mischievous antics. Truth to tell, these were always the central focus of Booth Tarkington’s Penrod stories, and, if not for them now, there would be precious little else, apart from the Day/MacRae duets, to amuse the audience for the rest of this picture’s run time.  Rather predictably, our story reaches its ‘dramatic’ zenith during the Christmas-themed vignette. Marjorie injures her leg and is unable to attend the town dance. Led to believe the real reason Marjorie has canceled their date is because her father is drunk, William investigates and, after some quaintly humorous misdirection, is encouraged to warble the cozy little ditty, ‘Merry Christmas to All’ as the Winfields gather to ring in the holiday: stop me if you’ve seen this one before, or, at least, seen it coming from a mile away! At the first burgeoning of springtime, William graduates from college and enlists in WWI, his departure, leaving a sadder but wiser Marjorie to await his return, and, presumably, to have earned a proposal of marriage by war’s end.

The chief selling feature of On Moonlight Bay is to hear Day and MacRae sell the time-honored catalog of turn-of-the-century pop tunes. Mercifully, these are plentiful and warbled to perfection, to keep the audience lulled into rose-colored longing for that seemingly simpler vintage of Americana – always good for box office. The vignettes of early 20th century living are adorably staged with a subtle nudge to the ribs. Alas, some of these slice-o-life vignettes – even for 1951 – are long in the tooth and semi-detached from a central narrative that never goes beyond the trials of young love…‘ain’t it grand?’ At age 29, it’s a bit of a stretch to buy the virginal Doris Day as an 18-year-old plucky hoyden. But at least Day’s acting makes us suspend a modicum of belief that, at the age of 29, this Marjorie might be as socially naïve, willful and youthfully effervescent at a glance. As for Gordon MacRae – one year older than his co-star, he perfectly fits the bill of the strapping campus man with persuasively flawed ‘progressive’ views on life. The episodic storytelling has its moments, as when a pair of powder puffs nearly asphyxiate William in a cloud of talc (now, that’s funny), and, to be sure Booth Tarkington’s narrative style, slavishly adhered to by Rose and Shavelson herein, retains its period ornamentation and quaintness. Yet, increasingly, the tale being told lacks any sort of well-rounded impetus, beyond Marjorie’s maturing into a young lady of qualities. That she eventually forsakes baseball for getting to ‘second base’ with the right fella has been predictably pre-ordained despite her swain’s natural aversion to wedding bells. So, in the end, we are left with just the mechanics, a wee too transparent in its ‘connect-the-dots’ to be considered anything more special or invigorating than a programmer, albeit, one, handsomely appointed by the denizens of this production design: art director, Douglas Bacon, set decorator, William Wallace, and cinematographer, Ernest Haller – their efforts, capped off by another miraculous underscore from the dean of American film scoring - Max Steiner, whose name needs no introduction. Don’t know who he is? Shame on you! Look him up and be ‘very’ impressed indeed.

The Warner Archive’s (WAC) Blu-ray release of On Moonlight Bay sports a fantastic-looking 1080p transfer, yet another example of why we love the studio’s whole-hearted investment in making its formidable back catalog of great classic movies live again in hi-def. Warner’s commitment here, again, raises the bar very high. The vintage Technicolor hues sparkle with incredible resilience. The full-on saturation of those gorgeous metal-based dyes is very impressive. Reds, greens, yellows and blues really pop. Contrast is excellent and there is a light smattering of grain looking very indigenous to its source. Flesh tones lean ever so slightly towards pasty pink. But this also could be the result of the heavy make-up worn by all the actors. Whites occasionally adopt a slightly bluish tint, though again, likely the result of the Technicolor process rather than this re-mastering effort. There are several very brief instances of Technicolor mis-registration. Aside: these anomalies ought to have been corrected before porting everything to disc. I mean, blink and you miss them. So, how costly would it have been to fix these minor corrections? The 2.0 DTS sounds excellent here, the songs the real benefactor of a soundtrack with zero hiss or pop. WAC has included 2 shorts that were previously available on their tired old DVD release, plus a vintage trailer remastered in hi-def.  Bottom line: On Moonlight Bay is a disposable musical. It never strains, but it also lacks the staying power to make it memorable once the house lights have come up. This Blu-ray, remastered from original 3-strip elements, is exceptionally appealing. A ‘no brainer’ purchase for Doris Day completionists, and fans of this sort of flag-waving Americana.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

3

VIDEO/AUDIO

3.5

EXTRAS

1