Product Review

The dreamy voice doesn't seem to fit the scrawny young fellow singing-- but this was precisely the early appeal of the young Frank Sinatra. He, and The Voice, are on agreeable display in this low-key MGM musical, with Frankie cast as an ex-GI ecstatic at returning to the greatest place on earth. Where else but Brooklyn? The 1947 movie is on nobody's short list of great MGM efforts, and it feels cobbled together from different projects. Sometimes it's a Jimmy Durante comedy, sometimes it's a showcase for snub-nosed Kathryn Grayson's coloratura (she does bits of Lakmé and Don Giovanni), and toward the end it becomes a fundraiser for a local boy who wants to be a pianist--a bizarre distraction from the romantic triangle of Sinatra, Grayson, and Peter Lawford (whose talent resides in Durante's comment, "He has a very fine command of the English language"). Best tune: Ol' Blue Eyes crooning the lovely "Time After Time." --Robert Horton