I Love Melvin
{{short description|1953 film by Don Weis}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2020}}
{{Infobox film
| name = I Love Melvin
| image = I-love-melvin-1953.jpg
| caption = Theatrical release poster
| director = Don Weis
| screenplay = {{Plainlist|
- George Wells
- Ruth Brooks Flippen{{efn|Additional dialogue}}
}}
| story = Laszlo Vadnay
| producer = George Wells
| starring = {{Plainlist|
}}
| cinematography = Harold Rosson
| editing = Adrienne Fazan
| music = Georgie Stoll
| studio = Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
| distributor = Loew's, Inc.
| released = {{film date|1953|3|20}}
| runtime = 77 minutes
| country = United States
| language = English
| budget = $1.3 million{{Citation | title = The Eddie Mannix Ledger | publisher = Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study | place = Los Angeles}}
| gross = $1.9 million{{cite magazine |url=https://archive.org/details/variety193-1954-01/page/n302/mode/1up?view=theater |title=Top Grossers of 1953 |magazine=Variety |volume=193 |issue=6 |date=January 13, 1954 |page=11 |issn=0042-2738}}
}}
I Love Melvin is a 1953 American Technicolor musical romantic comedy film directed by Don Weis, starring Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds.{{cite news |last=Crowther |first=Bosley |author-link=Bosley Crowther |url=https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/24093/I-Love-Melvin/overview |title=New York Times: I Love Melvin |department=Movies & TV Dept. |newspaper=The New York Times |year=2008 |access-date=August 4, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080520233204/http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/24093/I-Love-Melvin/overview |url-status=dead |archive-date=May 20, 2008}}
The film's most famous scene depicts Reynolds playing a human American football in a dance sequence. The film reunited O'Connor and Reynolds after 1952's Singin' in the Rain. According to MGM records, the film earned $1,316,000 in the United States and Canada and $654,000 overseas, resulting in a loss of $290,000.
Plot
Judy LeRoy, a chorus girl with dreams of Hollywood stardom, is promoted out of the chorus to play a human football in the Broadway musical Quarterback Kelly. On her way to a dance rehearsal, Judy accidentally bumps into Melvin Hoover, the bumbling assistant to Look magazine photographer Mergo, in Central Park, and after a brief argument, they go their separate ways. That night, after seeing Judy's picture on a poster for Quarterback Kelly, Melvin uses his press credentials and watches her football number from backstage. After the show, as Judy is leaving with her suitor Harry Flack, the heir to a paper box company, Melvin offers to do a photo spread of her for Look, and she accepts.
Melvin visits Judy at her home to take pictures of her, and as they continue spending time together to do photo shoots, they develop feelings for one another. However, Judy's father Frank complains that she has been neglecting Harry. One night, after they go to the movies, Judy reveals to Melvin that her family is pressuring her to marry the well-to-do Harry, and asks him to put her on the cover of Look, hoping her family will leave her alone. Desperate to win Judy's affections, Melvin promises he will try. The next day, he plasters the Look offices with photographs of Judy, but the editors choose to feature a race horse on the cover.
After learning that Quarterback Kelly will close in three weeks, Judy worries that she has no other job prospects. She tells Melvin that Harry proposed to her the previous night, though she has not yet given an answer, and that he is coming to dinner to talk to her father. Melvin enlists Mergo to create a fake issue of Look with Judy's photograph on the cover. As Harry prepares to ask Frank for Judy's hand, Melvin arrives and shows her the fake issue. Before Melvin can explain the truth, Judy excitedly shows it to her family and announces she cannot marry Harry.
When the next issue of Look comes out, Judy and her family are devastated that she is not featured on the cover. Melvin, too nervous to confess the truth, claims that Judy's picture will be on the cover of the next issue. After several issues without Judy on the cover, Frank angrily asks the Look editor, Mr. Henneman, when Judy's cover will come out. As Judy rushes to the Look offices with her mother, Henneman informs them that the cover they saw was a fake, and Judy concludes that Melvin created the fake cover to prevent her from marrying Harry. Mergo reveals that Melvin has disappeared after he quit three weeks earlier. Judy tearfully declares her love for Melvin, and the police begin searching for him.
While hiding in Central Park, Melvin sees a man reading a copy of Look with Judy's picture on the cover. Assuming it is a fake, Melvin grabs the magazine and is chased through the park by the police. Judy and her family arrive and, after learning that Melvin is in the park, start chasing him as well until Judy and Melvin eventually bump into each other on the same spot where they first met. She shows him the magazine, which contains a full-page ad reporting Melvin's disappearance, and the two kiss.
Cast
- Donald O'Connor as Melvin Hoover
- Debbie Reynolds as Judy LeRoy (née Schneider)
- Una Merkel as Mom Schneider
- Richard Anderson as Harry Flack
- Allyn Joslyn as Frank Schneider
- Les Tremayne as Mr. Henneman
- Noreen Corcoran as Clarabelle Schneider
- Jim Backus as Mergo
- Barbara Ruick as studio guide
- Robert Taylor as himself (cameo appearance in Judy's dream)
Music
Lyrics by Mack Gordon, and music by Josef Myrow
- "Lady Loves" (Debbie Reynolds)
- "We Have Never Met as Yet" (Debbie Reynolds and Donald O'Connor)
- "Saturday Afternoon Before the Game" (Chorus)
- "Where Did You Learn to Dance" (Debbie Reynolds and Donald O'Connor)
- "I Wanna Wander" (Donald O'Connor)
- "Life Has Its Funny Ups and Downs" (Noreen Corcoran)
Comic book adaptation
- Eastern Color Movie Love #20 (April 1953){{gcdb issue|id=264026|title=Movie Love #20}}
Notes
{{Notelist}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
{{commons category|I Love Melvin (film)}}
- {{IMDb title}}
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20190401125728/https://www.allmovie.com/movie/i-love-melvin-v24093 I Love Melvin] at AllMovie
- {{AFI film}}
- {{TCMDb title}}
{{Don Weis}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:I Love Melvin}}
Category:1953 musical comedy films
Category:1953 romantic comedy films
Category:1950s English-language films
Category:1950s romantic musical films
Category:American musical comedy films
Category:American romantic comedy films
Category:American romantic musical films
Category:English-language musical comedy films
Category:English-language romantic comedy films
Category:English-language romantic musical films
Category:Films about photojournalists
Category:Films adapted into comics
Category:Films directed by Don Weis
Category:Films set in New York City