I'LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS

US, 1952, 112 minutes, Black and white.
Doris Day, Danny Thomas, Frank Lovejoy, Patrice Wymore, James Gleason.
Directed by Michael Curtiz.

I'll See You In My Dreams is one of many Doris Day musicals of the early '50s. She had made her screen debut under the direction of Michael Curtiz in Romance on the High Seas. She had also worked with him in the attractive My Dream Is Yours. Here she portrays the wife of famed songwriter Gus Kahn. Kahn himself is played engagingly by Danny Thomas - who was to appear in the remake of The Jazz Singer. Thomas' career. however, was more successful on television than on the big screen. A regular Warner Brothers' cast led by Frank Lovejoy supports the principals.

The film is a blend of music and romance - with some detail, fictionalised, of Gus Kahn's biography. The film is an interesting period piece - with some humour but also some touches of sadness and seriousness, especially with the pressures on Kahn, the Depression, marriage breakdown. Kahn is famous for such songs as 'Pretty Baby', 'It Had To Be You'. The usual Warner Bros. musical production values are to the fore in the musical numbers.

Screenplay is by Melville Shavelson and Jack Rose, authors of many musicals and comedies at this time. They were to be responsible for the biography of Red Nicholls, played by Danny Kaye in The Five Pennies. Direction is by Michael Curtiz, director of many actioners in the '30s and '40s with Errol Flynn. He made a number of musicals in the late '40s and early '50s.

1. A popular Warner Bros. '50s musical? The attraction of the music, the popular songs, their dramatisation? The biography of a song-writer?

2. The choice of black and white photography? Period? Production numbers? Editing and pace? The atmosphere of the early 20th century, the musicals, Hollywood?

3. The title and the theme song? As summing up the film? The range of Gus Kahn's songs - situating their composition: 'I wish I Had A Girl'. 'It Had To Be You', 'Pretty Baby'?

4. The fictional portrait of Gus Kahn? Danny Thomas' presence? Kahn as a young man, his chances in the Chicago publisher's office, the secretary, Grace, and her advice? His patriotic fervour? The misunderstandings? Gus' proposal, the marriage? The birth of their baby? World War One and the entertaining of the troops? An outlet for his patriotism? The Ziegfeld connections, contracts, the entanglement with the star? The market crash? Hollywood? Having to cope? The impact of his nervous breakdown? Grace and her faithfulness? The work with Donaldson? The final triumph and the happy ending in the Hollywood spotlight?

5. Doris Day's strength and charm as Grace? Her work in the music firm, interest in Gus, courting, the proposal, marriage. the birth of the child? The war? The difficulties of the marriage? The stock market crash? The breakdown and Grace's support? The difficulties between the two? The final reconciliation? Doris Day's strength, charm. rendition of the songs?

6. The gallery of characters in this kind of film - music publishers, the musical comedy world of Ziegfeld, the Hollywood world, Donaldson and the composers, Fred Thomson, agents etc? The glamorous star, Gloria Knight - and her impact on Kahn?

7. The staging of the musical numbers, their insertion into the biography, in the pace of the film?

8. Lives of composers as illustrating the fortunes and misfortunes of America in the 20th. century? Aspects of the American dream?