Dear Ruth (1948 William D Russell) / The Reluctant Debutante (1958 Vincente Minnelli)

Without realising it we watched two adaptations of plays.

The first has Joan Caulfield finding an airman (William Holden, recently returned from the real Air Force) turning up at her parents' house having fallen in love with her through her letters - though they've been written by her younger sister Mona Freeman. Edward Arnold and Mary Philips are the parents, and Billy de Wolfe is fun as the straight-laced fiance of the young woman who becomes increasingly jealous as Holden keeps kissing her (something which he does frequently and noticeably). She can't help but fall in love with him, of course.

Norman Krasna wrote the hit Broadway play which Arthur Sheekman retained virtually intact. It therefore does seem very stagebound, but is fun. John Douglas Eames' 'The Paramount Story' reports 'According to Krasna, he based most of the characters on the household of Groucho Marx'.

'The Reluctant Debutante' was a play by William Douglas Home that began in Brighton with the unknown and 17 year old Anna Massey making her debut. It quickly switched to the West End and ultimately Broadway, still with Massey in the lead. For box office reasons MGM preferred to use the cute and American Sandra Dee instead. The parents are very smoothly played by Rex Harrison and his real wife Kay Kendall, who tragically died of leukemia the following year, a condition Harrison knew of but kept from her. (She was Jack Cardiff's cousin.) Home wrote the screenplay, which is given the Technicolor / CinemaScope treatment, though like the first film still obviously stagebound.

Angela Lansbury is a gossipy friend, the drummer Dee likes is John Saxon (Enter the Dragon, Black Christmas), Peter Myers is the boring creep and Diane Clare was in The Haunting  and Whistle Down the Wind.

Still signs of awkward widescreen framing though

Loved the line delivered by Harrison at 5 AM - "I would like a short nap before the office".

Quaglino's in St James is still running, founded in in 1929, known still for live music. The film is photographed by Joseph Ruttenberg and is a superior piece of entertainment, on the whole elegantly filmed, obviously dated.

Though for such a light and genial comedy, it does cast its shadows. Aside from the Kendall situation, Dee was sexually abused by her step-father when young (her mother wouldn't or couldn't admit to it) and suffered lifelong problems of anorexia and drink addiction - thus why there's always something slightly sad in those eyes. Sleep well, little Sandy.