When people ask the question "Why don't they make musicals anymore?" I find that it is quite easily answered: "Well, the genre was perfected in classical Hollywood." We can never get to that point again, and can only hope for re-invention, which we kind of got this past year with Moulin Rouge. However, that film cannot compare with the musicals of the 30s and 50s, nor can any other musical (at least from what I've seen) of the past 20 years.
I had never heard of Two Weeks with Love, and only began to watch it because there was nothing else on when I sat down to eat my lunch. I missed the first 15 minutes or so, but the plot was simple enough to reconstruct: a family goes on vacation in the Catskills around the turn of the Twentieth Century, and the middle of three daughters (Jane Powell), Patty, 17 in age, feels that she is becoming an adult. Her parents treat her like a child, though, and won't allow her to where a corset, the symbol of young womanhood. Another guest in their hotel is Demy, a Cuban gentleman played by none other than Ricardo Montalban (how old is this guy? this film was made in 1950!). He's a bit older than Patty, but she is extraordinarily attracted to him. Her older sister, Valerie, tries to trick her into screwing up when she's in front of him (she wants him, too), and her younger sister, Melba, thinks Patty's a nut. Debbie Reynolds, cute as ever, plays Melba, two years before Singin' in the Rain.
This film has a lot of great musical numbers, but it can go a long time at some points without one. However, it's so entertaining even without the music that I was never impatiently waiting for the next one to occur. The humor is marvelous. The dialogue is very clever, and there are actually a lot of sexual innuendoes. Some of them may not have been meant. For instance, one scene has Patty explaining to Demy how she would cling to him if she fell into a lake. She wraps her arms tightly around this pole that looks far too much like a penis to suggest anything else.
I hope someday that I'll be able to see the first 15 minutes that I missed. Perhaps then I'll give it a 10, but for now I'll give it a 9/10.
I had never heard of Two Weeks with Love, and only began to watch it because there was nothing else on when I sat down to eat my lunch. I missed the first 15 minutes or so, but the plot was simple enough to reconstruct: a family goes on vacation in the Catskills around the turn of the Twentieth Century, and the middle of three daughters (Jane Powell), Patty, 17 in age, feels that she is becoming an adult. Her parents treat her like a child, though, and won't allow her to where a corset, the symbol of young womanhood. Another guest in their hotel is Demy, a Cuban gentleman played by none other than Ricardo Montalban (how old is this guy? this film was made in 1950!). He's a bit older than Patty, but she is extraordinarily attracted to him. Her older sister, Valerie, tries to trick her into screwing up when she's in front of him (she wants him, too), and her younger sister, Melba, thinks Patty's a nut. Debbie Reynolds, cute as ever, plays Melba, two years before Singin' in the Rain.
This film has a lot of great musical numbers, but it can go a long time at some points without one. However, it's so entertaining even without the music that I was never impatiently waiting for the next one to occur. The humor is marvelous. The dialogue is very clever, and there are actually a lot of sexual innuendoes. Some of them may not have been meant. For instance, one scene has Patty explaining to Demy how she would cling to him if she fell into a lake. She wraps her arms tightly around this pole that looks far too much like a penis to suggest anything else.
I hope someday that I'll be able to see the first 15 minutes that I missed. Perhaps then I'll give it a 10, but for now I'll give it a 9/10.