Merry Andrew is a 1958 American musical film directed and choreographed by Michael Kidd. The screenplay by Isobel Lennart and I.A.L. Diamond is based on the short story "The Romance of Henry Menafee" by Paul Gallico. Saul Chaplin composed the music and Johnny Mercer wrote the lyrics for the film's score.
Plot
Andrew Larabee teaches at a school run by his headmaster father Matthew, a traditional man who disapproves of his son's unconventional methods despite their popularity with the students. Andrew's special interest is archaeology, and he hopes to earn his father's respect through this field of study.
During the school holidays, Andrew bicycles to ancient ruins in Sussex where he believes a statue of Pan (which had been left behind by a Roman legion) can be found. Such a discovery would enable him to publish and subsequently wed Letitia Fairchild, his fiancée of five years, who insists he earn a promotion before she marries him. At the site he encounters the Gallini family traveling circus, which has been ordered to pack up and leave by the local police because the land recently has been purchased by Lord Elmwood for a dairy farm. The five Gallini brothers and Selena mistake Andrew for a contractor, and when he tells them he doesn't mind if they remain, the Gallinis begin to set up their tent. Lord Elmwood arrives and threatens to remove both Andrew and the circus, but Andrew realizes he's a former fellow Oxford University student about whom Andrew knows an embarrassing secret. Threatened with exposure, Lord Elmwood agrees to give Andrew and the Gallinis a week before he starts construction on the land.
Andrew discovers an underground tunnel on the site and burrows through its ceiling and directly into the middle of the lion act during a performance. His amusingly masterful way with the animals impresses Selena, who tells him he is a born entertainer, and she teaches him to juggle. With ringmaster Antonio suffering from laryngitis, Andrew is coaxed into replacing him at the matinee. Unfortunately, Letitia and Andrew's brother Dudley arrive to check on Andrew's progress and decide to attend the circus, so Andrew is disguised as Antonio. Due to needing a lot of padding to fit into Antonio's clothes, Andrew is given a RAF safety life jacket with a whistle, smoke and emergency flares — all of which cause havoc, leading to people in the audience asking who the new clown is.
After the performance, Selena is overcome with jealousy at the sight of Andrew and Letitia together, and later follows Andrew into the tunnel. Andrew does some more digging, inadvertently causing a cave-in which traps both of them overnight. The following morning, Angelina the chimpanzee, who is tied to a stake by a rope, attempts to get a banana which has been thrown to her out of her reach, and, as Angelina pulls on the rope, the stake moves — causing the earth to collapse, and revealing Andrew and Selena. When Antonio and his sons discover them, they accuse Andrew of improper behavior with their Selena and, to save the family honor, insist the two wed immediately. Antonio announces the wedding will be held on the following Saturday.
Angelina the chimpanzee then finds the Pan statue Andrew was seeking and conceals it in her cage. Andrew convinces Selena his obligations at school override their wedding plans and he returns home, where he discovers his father has promoted him and Letitia is ready to accept him as her husband — with their marriage having also been set to take place on the following Saturday. On the night before the ceremony, Selena brings Andrew the statue of Pan which Angelina had given to her.
Andrew's class disappears on the day of the wedding, and he goes to the circus in search of them. His father and brothers discover the statue of Pan, and Dudley mentions that a circus was in the field in which Andrew was searching for Pan. Accompanied by Letitia and her father, Andrew's father and brothers follow him to the circus where they find Andrew performing in the Gallini brothers' high wire act. Andrew then admits he loves Selena.
Following the wedding ceremony, Andrew and Dudley leave the church arm-in-arm with Letitia. After the happy couple drive away on their honeymoon, Matthew gives his blessing to Andrew — saying that Andrew was carrying on a fine family tradition (one of their ancestors, Thomas Larabee, had been a Jester in the court of a King). A very happy Andrew then leaves with his bride-to-be Selena and the equally happy members of the Gallini family.
Cast
Notes
Being schoolteachers was traditional in the Larabee family, with nine generations of the Larabee family having been head of the Larabee School, in England, since it was founded by Sir Ruthven Larabee in the mid-1700s. Matthew Larabee, who is the present head of the school, has three sons — his oldest son is Gregory, who is at Cambridge University, his second son is Dudley, who is at Oxford University, and his youngest son is Andrew, who is a teacher at Larabee School. Although Andrew is more interested in archaeology than teaching, he is expected to eventually take over as head of the school from his father.
Antonio Gallini has five sons. He adopted his niece Selena after her parents were killed in an accident. As a result of Selena's adoption by their father, Selena became a sister to her over-protective cousins, Antonio's five sons.
Song list
- Pipes of Pan
- Chin Up, Stout Fellow
- Everything is Ticketty-Boo
- You Can't Always Have What You Want
- The Square of the Hypoteneuse
- Salud (Buona Fortuna)
The film's soundtrack was released on compact disc by DRG on July 11, 2006.
Critical reception
Bosley Crowther of the New York Times called the film "what the doctor ordered to help shake the winter blues" and added, "It isn't the most original or inventive vehicle in which the invariable cheering Mr. Kaye has come bouncing down the road. It is, in fact, a rather obvious and narrowly confined piece of comical contrivance for the genial performer to command . . . Successively, the scriptwriters and director Michael Kidd put Mr. Kaye through various fumbles . . . Once in a while, the star is needled into doing a pleasant song . . . Indeed, it would be most gratifying if there were more of this sort of thing in the show. However, its ample entertainment." [1]
Variety said the film "has a happy-go-chuckley attitude and some smart musical numbers set up by stand-out music and lyrics. Against this is the fact that the production does not always maintain its own set of very high comedy values, nor the pace of its initial scenes. Michael Kidd, who makes his screen debut as a director, still has a lot to learn about comedy set-ups and this unsureness is made the more evident by the contrast of the narrative stretches with the brisk and imaginative manner in which Kidd has choreographed the musical numbers. Here he is on experienced ground and he shows it." [2]
References
External links
