My Dream Is Yours

My Dream Is Yours Review

Oddly depressing Doris Day film story has more in common with proto-noir type movies like POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE or A STAR IS BORN than later Day musicals. This one definitely concentrates on "Day of the Locust" spectacle of talent flocking to Hollywood for their big break, only to meet shabby treatment and disappointment. The movie leaves a sour taste in one's mouth. I'd say a good 3/5 of this film is all about how hard Jack Carson sweats to get Doris a chance as a singer, but nobody wants to take a flyer on an untried talent. And you feel for him, but it doesn't change the fact that he's sort of a florid "death of a salesman" sort of loser.

Scene after scene, beautifully directed by Michael (FOUR DAUGHTERS) Curtiz, plays up the angle of the beautiful scenery (has Los Angeles ever looked so dreamy>) versus the shattered dreams of movieland wannabes. I;ve never been a huge fan of S Z Sakalln, the Austrian actor known as "Cuddles," but he's especially repulsive here as a radio sponsor with absolute, godlike powers over the little people who toil on his show, "The Hour of Enchantment." He has only one soft spot, a tiny dog he calls "Sally." He's creepy here, like Charles Coburn in THE PARADINE CASE. Every time Jack Carson has to approach him to ask him to listen to Miss Day one more time, you cringe, for Cuddles doesn't show a single sign of humanity, his self-aborption and selfishness reach Bunuelian levels.

And what is with the all girl orchestra, dressed in flimsy pastel togas, run by that martinet conductor? How lesbian were they trying to get? The conductor is stern enough to make Eve Arden, the radio producer who oversees their work, seem like a femme next to her.

As many have noted, the surreal part of the film is an animated sequence, set at Easter time, in which Doris' little son Freddie, who doesn't otherwise play much of a part in the action of the film overall, is left alone in a fancy bedroom crowded with stuffed rabbits and Easter eggs. He's sleepy and the film changes to a Dali evocation of his nightmares; the walls pull back, the toys grow huge, and suddenly Bugs Bunny (and Tweety) appear singing this crazy "Wake Up" type number that terrifies the little boy. It's so anxiety provoking that even watching it I broke out into a sweat. It just gets worse and worse as two stuffed rabbits turn into Doris Day and Jack Carson, who sing faster and faster while dressed in Uncle Wiggily rabbit costumes. I haven't seen anything as frightening in years, not since the SCREAM movies came out. And yet the grim, anxiety-filled mise-en-scene of MY DREAM IS YOURS is a fertile hatching ground for the birth of monsters.

Bring to DVD, please!

My Dream Is Yours Overview

An agent discovers a talented singer who's also a single mom and tries to make her a radio star, not expecting to fall in love with her.

My Dream Is Yours Specifications

This backstage showbiz saga was quickly put into production at Warners when Doris Day proved to be the breakout star of the moment in her first film, Romance on the High Seas. And although Doris has a basket of tuneful numbers and the movie itself boasts a crazy Bugs Bunny sequence, it has the look of something rushed into service. Doris spots the main chance when talent agent Jack Carson needs to replace his egotistical client, crooner Lee Bowman. Some conventionally enjoyable climbing-the-ladder scenes follow (which bear a resemblance to Doris Day's real-life struggles to catch on as a band singer, such as trouping while raising small child). Equally conventional, but less convincing, is a romantic contrivance to delay the inevitable Day-Carson pairing. The movie is awash in Technicolor, and director Michael Curtiz crams some wonderful vintage landmarks of Los Angeles into the picture: the Brown Derby restaurant, Schwab's Drugstore. The color also shows off Eve Arden's red hair, although her sardonic style requires no color enhancement. Martin Scorsese has acknowledged My Dream Is Yours as a key influence on his musical, New York, New York, and the unhappy romance and candy-colored photography give a hint why. And the Bugs Bunny thing is a live-action/cartoon blend (à la the Gene Kelly-Jerry the Mouse dance in Anchors Aweigh), directed by Friz Freleng, that puts Day and Carson in rabbit suits. That's the most inspired sequence, so be advised. --Robert Horton

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*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Aug 16, 2010 23:53:04