Merry Andrew is a 1958

1958 in film

The year 1958 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* February 16- "In the Money" by William Beaudine is released on this date. It would be the last installment of The Bowery Boys series which began back in 1946....

 American

Cinema of the United States

The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...

 musical film

Musical film

The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...

 directed and choreographed by Michael Kidd

Michael Kidd

Michael Kidd was an American film and stage choreographer.-Life and career:Born Milton Greenwald in New York City on the Lower East Side, the son of Abraham Greenwald, an immigrant barber, and his wife Lillian, Michael Kidd moved to Brooklyn with his family and attended New Utrecht High School there...

. The screenplay by Isobel Lennart

Isobel Lennart

Isobel Lennart was an American screenwriter and playwright.A native of Brooklyn, New York, Lennart moved to Hollywood, where she was hired to work in the MGM mail room, a job she lost when she attempted to organize a union...

 and I.A.L. Diamond is based on the short story

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 "The Romance of Henry Menafee" by Paul Gallico

Paul Gallico

Paul William Gallico was a successful American novelist, short story and sports writer. Many of his works were adapted for motion pictures...

. Saul Chaplin

Saul Chaplin

Saul Chaplin was an American composer and musical director.He was born Saul Kaplan in Brooklyn, New York.He had worked on stage, screen and television since the days of Tin Pan Alley...

 composed the music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

 and Johnny Mercer

Johnny Mercer

John Herndon "Johnny" Mercer was an American lyricist, songwriter and singer. He is best known as a lyricist, but he also composed music. He was also a popular singer who recorded his own songs as well as those written by others...

 wrote the lyrics for the film's score.

Plot

Andrew Larabee teaches at a school run by his headmaster

Head teacher

A head teacher or school principal is the most senior teacher, leader and manager of a school....

 father Matthew, a tradition

Tradition

A tradition is a ritual, belief or object passed down within a society, still maintained in the present, with origins in the past. Common examples include holidays or impractical but socially meaningful clothes , but the idea has also been applied to social norms such as greetings...

al man who disapproves of his son's unconventional methods despite their popularity with the students. Andrew's special interest is archaeology

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

, and he hopes to earn his father's respect through this field of study.

During the school holidays, Andrew bicycles to ancient ruins in Sussex

Sussex

Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...

 where he believes a statue of Pan

Pan (mythology)

Pan , in Greek religion and mythology, is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, nature, of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music, as well as the companion of the nymphs. His name originates within the Greek language, from the word paein , meaning "to pasture." He has the hindquarters, legs,...

 (which had been left behind by a Roman legion

Roman legion

A Roman legion normally indicates the basic ancient Roman army unit recruited specifically from Roman citizens. The organization of legions varied greatly over time but they were typically composed of perhaps 5,000 soldiers, divided into maniples and later into "cohorts"...

) can be found. Such a discovery would enable him to publish and subsequently wed Letitia Fairchild, his fiancée of five years, who insists he earn a promotion before she marries him. At the site he encounters the Gallini family traveling circus, which has been ordered to pack up and leave by the local police since the land is now property of dairy farmer Lord Elmwood. The five Gallini brothers and their cousin Selena mistake Andrew for a contractor, and when he tells them he doesn't mind if they remain, the Gallinis halt their "pulling up stakes". Lord Elmwood arrives and threatens to remove both Andrew and the circus, but Andrew realizes he's a former fellow Oxford University

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

 student with a checkered romantic past. Chastened by Andrew’s subtle threat of blackmail, Lord Elmwood agrees to give Andrew and the Gallinis a week before he starts construction on the land.

Shortly after he has begun his excavations, Andrew discovers an underground tunnel on the site and burrows through its ceiling and directly into the middle of the lion act during a performance. His amusingly masterful way with the animals impresses Selena, who tells him he is a born entertainer, and she teaches him to juggle. With ringmaster

Ringmaster (circus)

The ringmaster is the most visible performer in the modern circus, and among the most important, since he stage-manages the performance, introduces the various acts, and guides the audience through the entertainment experience. In smaller circuses, the ringmaster is often the owner and artistic...

 Antonio suffering from laryngitis

Laryngitis

Laryngitis is an inflammation of the larynx. It causes hoarse voice or the complete loss of the voice because of irritation to the vocal folds . Dysphonia is the medical term for a vocal disorder, of which laryngitis is one cause....

, Andrew is coaxed into replacing him at the matinee. Unfortunately, Letitia and Andrew's brother Dudley arrive to check on Andrew's progress and decide to attend the circus, so Andrew is disguised as Antonio. Due to needing a lot of padding to fit into Antonio's clothes, Andrew is given a RAF

Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

 safety life jacket with a whistle, smoke and emergency flares — all of which cause havoc in mid-speech and marking Andrew as a natural clown.

After the performance, Selena is overcome with jealousy at the sight of Andrew and Letitia together, and later follows Andrew into the tunnel. Andrew does some more digging, inadvertently causing a cave-in which traps both of them overnight. The following morning, Angelina the chimpanzee, who is tied to a stake by a rope, attempts to get a banana which has been thrown to her out of her reach. As Angelina pulls on the rope, the stake moves, causing the earth around it to collapse and revealing Andrew and Selena. When Antonio and his sons discover them, they accuse Andrew of improper behavior with their Selena and, to save the family honor, insist the two wed on the following Saturday.

Angelina the chimpanzee then finds the Pan statue Andrew was seeking and conceals it in her cage. Andrew convinces Selena his obligations at school override their wedding plans and he returns home, where he discovers his father has promoted him and Letitia is ready to accept him as her husband — with their marriage having also been set to take place on the following Saturday. On the night before the ceremony, Selena brings Andrew the statue of Pan which Angelina had given to her.

Because Andrew's class has performed well in their last test, Andrew has promised them a treat, but refuses to take them to the Gallini Circus, which is due to arrive. So the boys disappear on the day of the wedding, and Andrew tracks them back to the circus. His father and brothers discover the statue of Pan, and Dudley mentions that a circus was in the field in which Andrew was searching for Pan. Accompanied by Letitia and her father, Andrew's father and brothers follow him to the circus where they find Andrew being chased by the Gallini brothers. When Andrew is confronted by two upset families, he finally clears things up and admits that he loves Selena.

Following the wedding ceremony, Andrew and Dudley leave the church arm-in-arm with Letitia. After the happy couple - Dudley and Letitia - drive away on their honeymoon, Matthew gives his blessing to Andrew, saying that Andrew was carrying on a fine family tradition (one of their ancestors, Thomas Larabee, had been a jester in the court of a king). A very happy Andrew then leaves with his bride-to-be Selena and the equally happy members of the Gallini family.

Cast

• Danny Kaye
  Danny Kaye
  Danny Kaye was a celebrated American actor, singer, dancer, and comedian...
  
   ..... Andrew Larabee
• Pier Angeli
  Pier Angeli
  Pier Angeli was an Italian-born television and film actress. Her American cinematographic debut was in the starring role of the 1951 film Teresa, in which she won a Golden Globe Award...
  
   ..... Selena Gallini
• Salvatore Baccaloni
  Salvatore Baccaloni
  Salvatore Baccaloni was an Italian operatic bass, often regarded as the greatest buffo artist of the 20th century.- Life and career :Baccaloni was born in Rome...
  
   ..... Antonio Gallini
• Patricia Cutts
  Patricia Cutts
  Patricia Cutts was an English film and television actress.-Biography:Born in London, Cutts was the daughter of the writer-director Graham Cutts. Her first roles were small parts in American films such as I Was a Male War Bride and The Man Who Loved Redheads and the television shows Alfred...
  
   ..... Letitia Fairchild
• Noel Purcell
  Noel Purcell (actor)
  Noel Purcell was an Irish film and television actor.-Career:Purcell began his show business career at the age of 12 in Dublin's Gaiety Theatre. Later, he toured Ireland in a vaudeville act with Jimmy O'Dea....
  
   ..... Matthew Larabee
• Robert Coote
  Robert Coote
  Robert Coote was an English actor. He played aristocrats or British military types in many films, and created the role of Colonel Hugh Pickering in the long-running original Broadway production of My Fair Lady.-Biography:Coote was educated at Hurstpierpoint College in Sussex...
  
   ..... Dudley Larabee
• Rex Evans ..... Gregory Larabee
• Tommy Rall
  Tommy Rall
  Thomas Edward "Tommy" Rall is an American ballet dancer, tap dancer and acrobatic dancer who was a prominent featured player in 1950s musical comedies...
  
   ..... Ugo Gallini
• Walter Kingsford
  Walter Kingsford
  Walter Kingsford was a British stage, film and television actor born in Redhill, Surrey, England. He was born Walter Pearce and had several sisters...
  
   ..... Mr. Fairchild
• Rhys Williams
  Rhys Williams (actor)
  Rhys Williams was a Welsh character actor in movies and television, whose career spanned several decades.He made his film debut in How Green Was My Valley . This movie takes place in rural Wales with a large cast of Welsh characters, but was actually filmed in Hollywood with Canadian, American,...
  
   ..... Police constable

Song list

• Pipes of Pan
• Chin Up, Stout Fellow
• Everything is Ticketty-Boo
• You Can't Always Have What You Want
• The Square of the Hypotenuse
• Salud (Buona Fortuna)

The film's soundtrack was released on compact disc

Compact Disc

The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...

 by DRG on July 11, 2006.

Critical reception

Bosley Crowther

Bosley Crowther

Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...

 of the New York Times called the film "what the doctor ordered to help shake the winter blues" and added, "It isn't the most original or inventive vehicle in which the cheering Mr. Kaye has come bouncing down the road. It is, in fact, a rather obvious and narrowly confined piece of comical contrivance for the genial performer to command . . . Successively, the scriptwriters and director Michael Kidd put Mr. Kaye through various fumbles . . . Once in a while, the star is needled into doing a pleasant song . . . Indeed, it would be most gratifying if there were more of this sort of thing in the show. However, it's ample entertainment."

Variety

Variety (magazine)

Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

said the film "has a happy-go-chuckley attitude and some smart musical numbers set up by stand-out music and lyrics. Against this is the fact that the production does not always maintain its own set of very high comedy values, nor the pace of its initial scenes. Michael Kidd, who makes his screen debut as a director, still has a lot to learn about comedy set-ups and this unsureness is made the more evident by the contrast of the narrative stretches with the brisk and imaginative manner in which Kidd has choreographed the musical numbers. Here he is on experienced ground and he shows it."