Main Cast: Frankie Laine, Keefe Brasselle, Constance Towers, Lucy Marlow, William Leslie
Release Year: 1955
Country: US
Run Time: 83 minutes
Plot
Blake Edwards made his directorial debut in the bubbly musical comedy Bring Your Smile Along. The story, written by Edwards and his longtime associate-mentor Richard Quine, gets under way when New England schoolmarm Nancy Willows (Constance Towers) heads to New York, there to try her luck as a lyricist. Teaming with aspiring composer Martin Adams (Keefe Brasselle), Nancy pens several hit tunes for crooner Jerry Dennis (Frankie Laine). Martin would like to make his collaboration with Nancy a little more intimate, but she happens to have a fella back home, David Parker (William Leslie). Since David is as likeable as Martin, Nancy really has a problem. Lucy Marlow, who the previous year had shown up briefly in A Star is Born, is "introduced" as comedy-relief character Marge Stevenson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Bring Your Smile Along is a 1955comedyfilm by Blake Edwards. It was Edwards' directorial debut. Edwards wrote the script for this Frankie Laine musical with his mentor, director Richard Quine. Songs Laine sang in the film included his 1951 hit "The Gandy Dancers' Ball."
Quine and Edwards would subsequently write He Laughed Last for Laine. Edwards had previously written several scripts for Quine to direct: Sound Off was a 1952 service comedy starring Mickey Rooney; Rainbow Round My Shoulder was an earlier Laine vehicle from the same team; and All Ashore was Quine and Edwards' variation on On the Town teaming Rooney and Dick Haymes. Haymes also starred in their Cruisin' Down the River. Edwards directed second unit on Quine's Drive a Crooked Road, which cast Rooney against type and featured Quine and Edwards' script. Edwards continued working with Quine after his launching his own directing career. Their latterday efforts included the early Jack Lemmon films: My Sister Eileen, Operation Mad Ball, and The Notorious Landlady. Quine and Edwards also created the short-lived sitcom The Mickey Rooney Show, and developed Rooney's 1954 spoof, The Atomic Kid, for Republic Pictures.
