MARGIE

US, 1946, 104 minutes, Colour.
Jeanne Crain, Glenn Langan, Alan Young, Esther Dale, Lynn Bari.
Directed by Henry King.

Margie is a piece of nostalgia in the 1940s, after the war - reminiscences about 1928. In later decades it still seems a pleasant piece of nostalgia.

The film shows the life at American High School in the late '20s, the preoccupations, studies, growing up. Jeanne Crain is very attractive in the central role. A very young Alan Young is one of her boyfriends. There is pleasant colour photography re-creating the period. Director Henry King was a popular director of 20th Century Fox entertainment . (It is interesting to note the 1928 school debate on Nicaragua - interesting in '70s and '80s hindsight.)

1. An enjoyable piece of nostalgia? Americana? Youngsters growing up? College?

2. Attractive colour photography, the life in the small town, school, dances? The range of the musical score - the background of popular melodies of the time?

3. The title, the focus on Margie, the song? Margie in the mid-1940s, her husband and daughter, the reminiscences, the comparisons of the generations? Her growing up?

4. Jeanne Crain's attractiveness as Margie? her daughter, memoirs of 1928, her father visiting once a week, his role as an undertaker, her pride in him, her wanting him, to visit, his coming to the debate, his being impressed by her words on Nicaragua, his taking her to the dance? Margie and her grandmother, her grandmother's eccentricity, kindness and understanding, understanding of the boys, arranging for her father to take Margie to the dance, her tact with Mr Fontaine? Margie and her awkwardness, the play on losing her bloomers at the beginning, the skating, the dance? Her friendship with Marybelle, the contrast between the two, girl-chatter, Johnnykins and rivalry? The sequences of school, the crush on Mr Fontaine, the dining room, accidents? The debate and her presentation of Nicaragua? The build-up to the Prom? Her awkwardness, misunderstanding Mr Fontaine though attracted to her humiliation? Friendship with Roy, skating with him, his tonsils and Adam’s apple? The Prom, the dancing, the star, the bloomers? Her able to laugh about her memories? The importance of all these things for the teenager?

5. The boys at the school: Roy and his awkwardness, pleasantness, Adam’s apple, tonsils? Friendship with Margie? Johnnykins and his being with Marybelle, captain of the football team, dancing with Margie and Mr. Fontaine's judgment that he was a real drip? The debating and the style of debates? School activities? The crush on Mr Fontaine?

6. Mr Fontaine, the French teacher, trained in Paris, friendship with the girls, admiration for Margie, friendship with Miss Palmer? The encounters with Margie, misunderstanding, marrying her? Miss Palmer as the librarian, her own crush on Mr Fontaine?

7. The pleasant memories of the times, a seeming innocence, teenagers growing up, the next generation and World War Two?

8. The perennial popularity of this kind of Americana?