Cynthia (1947)
7/10
"Cynthia" has the candy-coated flavor of realism and feeling
4 June 2005
Warning: Spoilers
"Cynthia" is the story of a girl tyrannized by parents who think she's too delicate for the likes of this world…

Kept in a protected, glass menagerie kind of environment, Cynthia hasn't been allowed to grow up in a normal way… But with the he1p of a mother (Mary Astor) who's willing to bend, and a music teacher (S. Z. Sakall) who thinks she's a princess, Cynthia makes it to the school prom—and survives…

Due to her youthful talent for charming her audiences and a physical beauty perhaps precocious for her fifteen years, her character provides the sweet, innocent side of Liz… With her precise diction and her obedient manner, she has something of the carriage of the best behaved little girl in the class, but her performance has a kind of grave charm… The movie's slogan was "Her First Kiss!" but Taylor's romance with Jimmy Lydon (who was also her heartthrob in "Life with Father") is clearly pre-erotic: she's sweet rather than sexy in this one…

Like many of the early Taylor movies, "Cynthia" has the candy-coated flavor of realism and feeling…The last scene, in which Liz bounds into the living room, confounding her parents' fear, that going to the prom on a rainy night would do her in, is her declaration of independence: bright and energetic, all set to become part of a normal teenage life, Cynthia (and movie star Liz) are now all grown-up and ready for action
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