On Moonlight Bay

Although there's a lot in TCM's Christmas marathon that I've both seen and blogged about before, there are surprisingly a few films that I hadn't yet seen. One of those is on my DVR from a previous airing, so I watched it in conjunction with the upcoming TCM airing. That movie is On Moonlight Bay, and you can see it tomorrow (Dec. 21) at noon.

The movie opens sometime in about the summer of 1916. War is raging in Europe, but in the small towns of the American midwest that, like New England, populated the movies of old Hollywood, everything was still peaceful. George Winfield (Leon Ames) is the vice-president of a bank in a small Indiana city, but he's moving on up, if not to a deluxe apartment in the sky, at least to a nice big house in a better part of town together with his wife Alice (Rosemary DeCamp), tomboyish adult daughter Marjorie (Doris Day), bratty son Wesley (Billy Gray), and maid Stella (Mary Wickes). Everybody else isn't thrilled with the move because even though it's just across town, it will take them away from all their friends. (Seriously, how long of a bike ride would it be?)

The two kids, being none too pleased moving into a new house, decide to go engage in a bit of trouble-making, culminating in trying some sort of target practice with a gun. However, they nearly hit neighbor William Sherman (Gordon MacRae). He's just finished up is junior year in college at Indiana University, and as is not uncommon for college students, is quite the radical. He claims not to believe in marriage, certainly doesn't like the sort of popular music that's playing when he and Marjorie go to the local fairground, and even ticks off Marjorie's dad with his comments on modern banking. Dad has a sensible (at least for this point in the movie) idea that Marjorie would be better off with somebody like piano teacher Hubert Wakely (Jack Smith).

Now, we know from Doris Day and Gordon MacRae's names being at the head of the cast that they're going to be right for each other, never mind the fact that Hubert is portrayed as an utter drip, that Marjorie ought to wind up with William at the end of the movie. But we're only about a quarter of the way through, so we know everybody's going to have to go through a lot before we get there. The first comes when Marjorie sprains her ankle just before the big Christmas charity ball, and Marjorie can't be bothered to tell William the truth about what actually happened. Instead, nasty Wesley makes up a story from having seen a silent film that Dad has taken to drinking and beating his wife and daughter. Nowadays, the teacher would be required to go straight to the police, but in those days, it was just gossip, but gossip that William hears when he arrives back in town.

By the time William graduates with the Class of 1917, Woodrow Wilson got the US into the Great War, and William decides he's going to enlist. He'd like to marry Marjorie before heading off to Europe, but her dad still clearly doesn't approve of any of this. How is this going to change?

On Moonlight Bay is one of those nostalgic movies that were quite popular during the years of World War II, and remained popular into the early 1950s, with this being toward the end of the cycle. It's filled with old songs for Day and MacRae to sing, and was a big hit at the box office, which resulted in a sequel, By the Light of the Silvery Moon (which I have on my DVR and will review at a later date). It's a nice little slice-of-life movie, and one that's easy to see why it was so successful. The one issue I had with it was the kid brother character, who is written to be particularly nasty; the bit about claiming Dad was drunk and beating Mom made me think of These Three. But a lot of people think his character provides great comic relief.

I prefer some of the other movies airing in this year's Christmas marathon, but I know a lot of people will enjoy On Moonlight Bay.