Changes sometimes happen in the places where you least expect them to, and for Chicago city slicker Pat Boone, it's in the country. This musical remake of "Home in Indiana" has him going to spend his probation with aunt and uncle Jeanette Nolan and Arthur O'Connell, basically turning their drab life into excitement and bringing romance to tomboy neighbor Shirley Jones who may have a wealthy for zoning father, but she's as down to earth as they come.
Then there's her sister, Dolores Michaels, the the sophisticated glamor girl who sets her sights on Boone herself but is only looking for some quick thrills. When Boone is able to tame a two year old horse that won't let any human near it, he ends up riding it at a horse race at the state fair, but his parole issues come back to haunt him. O'Connell, previously cynical about his wife's nephew, now sets out to protect him, having been amazed by the things he's done since arriving.
A decent musical score aides this into be coming a lot better than what I expected, and Boone and Jones have very good chemistry. It's been updated to have Nolan and O'Connell as the parents of a young man who was killed in the Korean War so that gives a reason for O'Connell's bitterness. It's colorful and funny, touching and profound, and a great cast takes an old fashioned story and gives it some modern reality. The combination of traditional musical comedy songs mixed with Boone's crooning style popular at the time insured screen success for him (which included a big budget remake of "State Fair"),and this is a nice follow-up from Jones' two big Rodgers and Hammerstein movie musical versions of stage hits.
April Love
1957
Action / Comedy / Drama / Musical
April Love
1957
Action / Comedy / Drama / Musical
Plot summary
Chicagoan Nick Conover received a suspended sentence for being caught joyriding in a stolen car, with his driver's license suspended indefinitely. Nicky's problems are seen as running around with the wrong crowd. Nicky's sentence is predicated on him living at the run down Kentucky horse farm of his Aunt Henrietta and Uncle Jed Bruce, who he hasn't seen since he was a child. The judge figured this more wholesome environment would get Nicky away from his bad influences. Henrietta wants to be a part of Nicky's salvation, but Jed doesn't trust the fact of a delinquent being under his roof, although he has other more personal reasons not having to do with Nicky for his initially antagonistic relationship with his nephew. Nicky doesn't rebel against farm life, but ends up gravitating toward anything mechanical, especially the sports car owned by sophisticated Fran Templeton - the elder daughter of Dan Templeton, who owns the luxurious neighboring horse farm - and by association Fran herself. With his infatuation with Fran, Nicky doesn't see that Fran's younger sister, the tomboyish and horse loving Liz Templeton, hangs around him because she is falling for him. It isn't until a couple of incidents involving Jed's only remaining horse, the spirited Tugfire, occur that Nicky begins to see his uncle and Liz in a different light. But Nicky's past catching up with him may get in the way of a Nicky/Liz happy ending.
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Movie Reviews
This horse race is a great horse race. Don't miss it. Don't even be late.
It's for the very young
It was hard to avoid hearing April Love during 1957, it was number one on the charts for a bit. With every minute that Pat Boone sang this song on the radio it was just free advertising for the film that this was the title song for.
Pat plays a kid from Chicago who's been sent out to his uncle and aunt's farm while he sits out a bit of juvenile joy riding in a stolen car for which he's gotten probation and a suspended license. After a bit of trouble he proves useful around the farm and makes the acquaintance of neighbor sisters Dolores Michaels and Shirley Jones. They both kind of like Pat, but it's Jones he makes the music with.
Besides April Love Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster wrote a bunch of other songs for Pat and Shirley to sing. Nothing anywhere near as memorable as the title song. It got the only Oscar recognition for April Love, a nomination for Best Original Song. It however lost to All The Way in 1957.
What Pat also does is take up harness racing the way Lon McCallister did in Home In Indiana for which April Love is a remake. A sore subject in the house as O'Connell and Nolan lost their own son and this was his thing.
April Love holds up well after 60 years. As I write this it's one of the few films of the era where both leading man and woman are still with us. Doubt it will be remade though, you don't get singers like Pat Boone and Shirley Jones any more.
One for Boone's multitude of fans!
Pat Boone (Nick Conover),Shirley Jones (Liz Templeton),Dolores Michaels (Fran) Arthur O'Connell (Jed),Matt Crowley (Dan Templeton),Jeanette Nolan (Henrietta),Brad Jackson (Al Turner).
Director: HENRY LEVIN. Screenplay: Winston Miller. Based on the story "The Phantom Filly" by George Agnew Chamberlain. Photographed in CinemaScope and DeLuxe Color by Wilfrid M. Cline. Film editor: William B. Murphy. Art directors: Lyle R. Wheeler, Herman A. Blumenthal. Set decorations: Walter M. Scott, Eli Benechev. Wardrobe director: Charles Le Maire. Costumes: Renie. Songs: "April Love", "Clover in the Meadow", "Do It Yourself", "Give Me a Gentle Girl", "Bentonville Fair" by Paul Francis Webster (Iyrics) and Sammy Fain (music). Music adapted by Alfred Newman and Cyril J. Mockridge, orchestrated by Pete King, Skip Martin and Edward B. Powell, conducted by Lionel Newman. Color consultant: Leonard Doss. Hair styles: Helen Turpin. Make-up: Ben Nye. Special photographic effects: L. B. Abbott. Assistant director: Stanley Hough. CinemaScope lenses by Bausch & Lomb. Sound: Eugene Grossman, Frank Moran. Westrex Sound System. Locations photographed in Lexington, Kentucky. Producer: David Weisbart. Produced and released by 20th Century-Fox.
Songs: "April Love" (Boone; reprized Boone and Jones); "Clover in the Meadow" (Boone); "Do It Yourself" (Boone, Jones, Michaels, Jackson); "Give Me a Gentle Girl" (Jones); "Bentonville Fair" (Boone and chorus); "When the Saints Go Marching In" (orchestral).
Copyright 1957 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening at neighborhood theaters: 27 November 1957. U.S. release: November 1957. U.K. release: 13 April 1958. Australian release: 26 December 1957. Sydney opening at the Regent. 8,936 feet. 99 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: A car thief reforms on a Kentucky horse farm.
NOTES: A remake of "Home In Indiana" (1944). Third to "Anastasia" and "Love Me Tender" as Fox's top domestic box-office attraction of 1957. Fox's 90th CinemaScope release.
COMMENT: Pleasant if undistinguished musical remake of "Home In Indiana" (which was also screen-played by Winston Miller),blandly directed but attractively photographed. Aside from "April Love" itself, the songs are unremarkable. Nevertheless, Boone's many fans will love them all!
Although just about every curve the plot is thoroughly predictable, the players are likable and all the production credits, aside from the capable but uninventive direction, are pleasingly smooth.