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Don't listen to the negative reviews

Best movie ever!

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

If you were told that a movie was produced and directed by Frank Capra and starred Jane Wyman, Bing Crosby, Franchot Tone and Alexis Smith you might be forgiven for having great expectations. Sadly there is only one thing great about it and that is an operatic performance by a teenage Anna Maria Alberghetti. AMA plays a teenage war orphan in Paris who was up for adoption and when Bing Crosby, playing a journalist involved with the placement of orphans, fails in his first attempt at placing a child with prospective parents and discovers that the husband is a conductor of a major orchestra, he strongarms the couple into listening to AMA. They are transfixed as they should be and when they discover she is blind they are hooked, since she will be a great concert performer. Ugh! The rest of the movie is almost that bad, save for the operatic performance, though many of the stars are adequate. The absolute low point for me was a series of cameos taking place on the airplane bringing Bing and some prospective adoptees to the States. During the flight he breaks out into song and low and behold Louis Armstrong, Dorothy Lamour, Phil Harris and the insufferable Frank Fontaine were all on the plane with him and ready to perform. How anyone could ever have laughed at Fontaine (and his Crazy Guggenheim character) is a mystery for the ages.

Produced and directed by Frank Capra, one of his last films (he didn't direct another film, his next to last, until 1959), with a story by his frequent collaborator Robert Riskin, and Liam O'Brien, this slightly above average musical (late screwball) comedy features Bing Crosby in the title role.Crosby, who's always ready with a song to smooth over any situation, plays the kind of easy going, unflappable character that marked his career. Jane Wyman, Alexis Smith, Franchot Tone, James Barton, Robert Keith, and Connie Gilchrist, among others, round out the cast. The Hoagy Carmichael-Johnny Mercer song "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening" won an Academy Award; Riskin and O'Brien also received a nomination for their Motion Picture Story. This Oscar winning song is sung throughout, including during one of the film's several well choreographed numbers (another with uncredited Louis Armstrong, Phil Harris, and Dorothy Lamour) featuring Crosby and Wyman!Boston foreign correspondent Pete Garvey (Crosby) has spent the last three years in Paris helping to find homes for war orphans. His ring-less "fiancée" Emmadel Jones (Wyman) and newspaper editor George Degnan (Keith) are impatient for his return. Bobby (Jacques Gencel) and Suzi (Beverly Washburn), two of the orphans, have found their way into Pete's heart and he decides to adopt them. This takes time, which delays his return home.Meanwhile, unbeknownst to him, an exasperated Emmadel, who's been employed as the secretary to real estate mogul Wilbur Stanley (Tone) for the past two years, accepts her boss's proposal of marriage. George's paper has dubbed Emmadel "Cinderella Jones". However, the stipulation on Pete's adoption of Bobby and Suzi states that he must have a wife within 5 days of his arrival in Boston with the orphans.So, Pete goes straight to Emmadel's where he's warmly greeted by her somewhat drunken, and former Navy captain father William 'Pa' Jones (Barton), and is not so well received by her Ma (Gilchrist), who foresees Pete messing up her daughter's engagement to the $40 million man. Sure enough, Pete conspires to stop the wedding, which is conveniently scheduled the same day as his deadline, in part by appealing to Emmadel's maternal instincts towards the orphans, who are not only cute, but have adopted some of Pete's mannerisms.Though you can probably figure out how the story will end, it's the "getting there" that satisfies, at least most of the time. Pete meets Wilbur, to whom he's open about his intentions (e.g. that he plans to marry Emmadel himself), and the two make a gentleman's agreement - "may the best man win". Wilbur, confident of his position, even allows Pete to move in to the Stanley estate guest house in the days immediately preceding the wedding. This delights Emmadel's Pa, but infuriates her and her mistrusting Ma. Smith plays Wilbur's prim and proper fourth cousin Winifred Stanley, who's always had a crush on him. Pete, who senses this, plays a Pygmalion- like role, with George's assistance, to help Winifred loosen up in order to appear more attractive to her cousin Wilbur.A lot of slapstick humor, only some of which is funny, follows. If it weren't for the overtly contrived (indeed, incredible) ending, I'd probably rate this as an above average comedy.H.B. Warner, Nicholas Joy, Ian Wolfe, and Adeline De Walt Reynolds (uncredited) play other members of the Stanley family; Irving Bacon plays their butler. Charles Halton appears, as an immigration official, and so does Charles Lane - both are uncredited.

What a wonderful Bing Crosby and Jane Wyman vehicle. No wonder the two were used again the following year in "Just for You."Wyman needed a break after such heavy dramas as "Johnny Belinda," and "The Blue Veil." This was a perfect movie for her, playing the tired fiancée of Bing (Pete Garvey). Fed up waiting for him from returning from France as a foreign correspondent, she agrees to marry her boss, Franchot Tone, worth $40 million.The 2 adorable children that Bing brings to America provide charm and elegance. There is always Connie Gilchrist, who brings her charm by doing what she knows best- playing a common woman full of love and joy. She is glad that the wedding is over, even though it didn't go her way, because she can now take off her corset. That was Gilchrist for you.The big surprise of the movie is Alexis Smith, who nearly steals it. She is a riot as Tone's 4th neglected cousin. Spurred on by Crosby, to win Tone away from Wyman, she provided side-splitting hysterics in the film.The film makes us remember that it was impossible for single people to adopt children. With the Oscar winning song, In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening, the film is an absolute hit in so many ways.

This film is never considered one of Frank Capra's best, but that shouldn't keep potentially interested viewers from seeing it. On its face, it doesn't seem to be what has come to be known as a Capra film because it isn't issue-laden and doesn't really make a point other than the "follow your heart" admonition that most romantic comedies invoke. In many ways, it's a remake of Capra's "It Happened One Night" (1934), and while it doesn't have the financially and emotionally gut-wrenching backdrop of the Depression to give it the weight of the original, it's nonetheless pleasant and clever.To appreciate "Here Comes the Groom" is to embrace a bunch of disparate parts. First and foremost, this is a Bing Crosby film, replete with seemingly ad-libbed asides that filled the Hope/Crosby "Road" pictures. Bing, who plays a newspaper reporter (one of Capra's favorite devices) but basically plays himself, has as his foil not just one but three adult characters (his editor, his would-be father-in-law and his romantic competitor), plus a passel of kids, in particular a French boy and girl whom he has virtually adopted as his own. The two kids are cute and genuinely good-natured, so when they are on screen, as they often are, they light up the place. Their repeated mimicry of the Crosby character's signature farewell gesture -- a tooth-filled smile and open-fingered hand wave -- never fails to please (except for the final time, in the film's closing seconds, in which it appears that the duo is starting to run out of steam).Jane Wyman is a strong presence in the film as well, and quite appealing as someone torn between an elusive true love and the biological clock. She is every bit the musical equal of Crosby in their imaginatively choreographed presentation of the movie's theme song "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening," staged in various parts of a huge office, then down a half-dozen floors in an elevator and out to the street.Franchot Tone is the other big name among the actors, and he plays his role as Wyman's rich fiance with characteristic aplomb. Nothing seems to rattle Tone's character, even the possibility of losing Wyman, which may be part of the film's "follow your heart" message.Easily outshining Tone is Alexis Smith, who never received the career-making, starring roles that she deserved. She plays a caterpillar whom Crosby, in his own strategic interest, turns into a butterfly, and while Crosby's tutelage is over-the-top sexist by today's standards, her transformation and resulting passion are eye-popping, for the Tone character and his staid relatives as well as for the viewer.With such stong characterizations and actors, Capra for some reason decided he needed something more, so he threw in a grab bag of other elements. Before Crosby and his two adoptees fly back to the States, there's an extended operatic solo by the quite young and show-stopping Anna Maria Alberghetti. And when Crosby and the youthful pair finally get on the plane, they happen to sitting next to a group of USO entertainers, so of course there's a song, "Cristofo Columbo," which brings in fleeting contributions by Louis Armstrong, Frank Fontaine, Dorothy Lamour and Phil Harris. These are tangents, to be sure, and they make the viewer wonder momentarily if Capra has lost his narrative thread, but they don't last long and are engaging in their own right. (Perhaps the "Cristofo Columbo" scene is supposed to echo the "Man on the Flying Trapeze" scene from "It Happened One Night.")Those looking for further Capra touches will be warmed by the brief appearances of H.B. Warner (the judge in "Mr. Deeds," a senator in "Mr. Smith" and Mr. Gower in "It's a Wonderful Life"), Charles Lane (Potter's real-estate man in "Wonderful Life") and Charles Halton (bank examiner in "Wonderful Life"). The cinematography in this film is serviceable, but there are frustrating instances of sloppiness. At one point, in a reaction shot, the camera mysteriously lingers on Crosby's editor as he does nothing for about five seconds. It's an inconsequential flub, but it feels long enough to make the viewer wonder if the film's cutter and Capra himself just went to sleep. (It's reminiscent of a similar and even longer gaffe in Capra's "You Can't Take It with You" from 1938.)A more egregious example of visual inattention comes during a physical argument between the Wyman and Smith characters. For the actual fight, in which the two flip each other over with quick arm twists, it's all too obvious that stunt doubles are used. The doubles' faces, which look nothing like those of the two actresses (they may even be men), are repeatedly shown, and the hair color and length of the Smith double doesn't come close to matching the hair of Smith. Who was minding the store when this was shot? It's the kind of mistake that makes all kinds of viewers, not just movie buffs, roll their eyes.To its credit, the film does lay out, in albeit cliche form, the reality of class differences. But both rich and not-so-rich are given gentle appreciative treatment. Clearly, the viewer is supposed to side with the more down-to-earth characters of Crosby and Wyman, but the rich are not cardboard villains, either. It's almost as if the message is that there is a time and place (and hope) for people from all walks of life."Here Comes the Groom" (a clever title in itself) is a product of the pop culture of its time; it's all-white (save for Armstrong), and traditional gender roles hold sway. But look beyond that and you will find a film that you probably didn't know you would like so well. Crosby, as top comic banana, plays his likeable persona perhaps better than ever, and the film leaves lots of smiles in its wake. The ending may be predictable, but this is a movie in which it's just fun to see the character-based twists and turns that steer the plot to its conclusion.