Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1951)

Cadet caper: When Doris Day, James Cagney bring Broadway to West Point, the Academy walls rock — with song Family affair: Philip Loeb, Arlene McQuade, Larry Robinson, Gertrude Berg re-enact their famous TV roles ^ (F) The West Point Story (Warners) ONCE again James Cagney is a song and dance man. This musical can boast a good cast, good tunes, good songs and good humor. Virginia Mayo is beautiful and so is Doris Day and they both dance and sing. Gordon MacRae’s rich baritone makes every song he sings sound like a hit tune. Young dancer Gene Nelson does some fancy stepping in which he was directed by LeRoy Prinz. The story is an amusing one which has a military West Point background with a Broadway twist. Cagney appears on the West Point scene when he agrees to help stage their traditional 100th night show. Some of the songs you’ll want to hear again and again are “The Kissing Rock,” “You Love Me,” “One Hundred Days Till June,” and “The Military Polka.” Your Reviewer Says: Good performances by good performers. Program Notes: For the first time since “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” tvhich won him an Academy Award eight years ago, Jimmy Cagney goes into a song and dance. Jimmy sports a new hair-do, a regulation West Point crew cut, and a new physique — pounds lighter . . . Ever since she signed with Warners Virginia Mayo, a former dancer, has been begging for a dancing opportunity. This is it — and how that girl can do a hot number . . . Doris Day started her career as a dancer while she was in her teens in St. Louis. Only recently in “Tea for Two” did she timidly start dancing again. So pleased was she with the results that now she hopes to cram as many dances in her pictures as she does songs . . . Gene Nelson proves again that he is almost ready to take his place beside Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. A former member of the Sonja Henie ice show. Gene has been working hard on his dancing since he was four. . . . Alan Hale Jr., playing his first important role since the death of his beloved father, is twenty-nine and has been acting for ten years, with three years off to fight for Uncle Sam. '^v' (F) The Goldbergs (Paramount) THE famous “Goldbergs,” as heard over CBS radio for years, and recently seen as a series over television, has been made into a heart-warming movie. Molly, Jake, Sammy, Rosalie and Uncle David all come to life. (Philip Loeb is excellent as Mr. Goldberg.) Molly involves herself in her neighbors’ business; an ex-beau's present love affair; a PTA dance; a widow’s fate — and, to follow the pattern of Molly’s life, nearly all ends in disaster. Millions of people acquainted with the Goldbergs and their trials and tribulations these many years have wanted to see them in a film. And so Hollywood sent for Molly Goldberg (Gertrude Berg) and she wrote the story and then starred in the picture— a la Orson Welles! Your Reviewer Says: Relaxing, not taxing. Program Notes: Gertrude Berg, plump and fiftyish, is a great deal like the plain, amiable Molly she portrays. “What with writing, rehearsing and acting, I suppose l spend more time being Molly than I do being myself,” she says. While she was in Hollywood making her first picture Mrs. Berg lived in the swanky Bel Air Hotel, a far cry from Molly’s Bronx, and she shared a sun deck with Doris Duke. She toyed with the idea of stringing a clothesline across the sundeck, but never quite got around to it. If the film version clicks with the public, Paramount plans to make a series of “The Goldbergs.” Mrs. Berg is a devoted family woman. She has been married to Louis Berg, a chemist, for thirty years, and they have two children. She is crazy about hats, and her hobby is collecting watches. Unlike Molly, she lives in a Park Avenue apartment and has a country home in Connecticut . . . “The Goldbergs” has proved a training ground for many actors and actresses who later became famous. Among them, Joe Cotten, Van Heflin, Everett Sloane, Richard Widmark, Joan Tetzel, George Tobias and Marjorie Main. Best Performances See Page 106. For Brief Reviews of Current Pictures See Page 12. BY LIZA WILSON isisis outstanding good fair F — -for the whole family A — for adults p 29