Plot—a backwoods southern girl is invited into a plantation manor after her father is sent to jail for bootlegging. The invite comes after she's rescued the hunky son from a plane crash. Now she's caught up in a humorous conflict of cultures while trying to adjust. At the same time, she pines for the son's affections despite his snobbish girlfriend.
Okay, after 70-some years of breathing my brain is turning to mush—Reynolds is charming, the song's cute, and I even enjoyed the suds this time around. Sixty years ago I hated the movie, but then I preferred rubber space monsters and Elvis's shaking' up the world. So I guess Reynolds and her song didn't really register. Truth be told, I still like Roger Corman's quickies and, of course, Elvis forever.
Nonetheless, in my now geezer opinion, the movie's a charmer, with occasional brain teasing moments. Tammy's a role the spunky Reynolds was born to play. Her sparkly innocence is winning from the git-go. Pairing her with the hunky Nielsen, however, remains a stretch. He towers over her like Tarzan in a spiffy suit. Still, her down-home truth-telling contrasts engagingly with the uptown sophisticates. I can see Peter (Nielsen) succumbing to her natural charm. But she's not all innocence. Behind her lack of education, Tammy has a perceptive inner eye, or a kind of backwoods wisdom. That compensates a lot for her amusing goofs in polite company. And catch the many innuendos I missed first time around. For example, when Tammy comes up with "of a carnal nature" while fending off masher Ernie's eager advances, I had to rerun the passage to make sure I heard correctly.
What also catches my eye this time is the subtle romancing of the ante-bellum South. The Brents represent the gentile side of the Old South transposed to the 1950's. In that sense, there's something of a nostalgia for the earlier time though it's not rubbed in. Then too, a contrasting note is sounded when Osia (Beavers), the Black cook, explains to Tammy the onerous meaning of her red bandanna headgear. So we're reminded of the Old South's not so gentile other side. And catch those colorful battleship cars. 1957 was about the peak year for showy fender fins that seemingly stretch into the great beyond.
Anyway, sociology aside, my age may be showing, but this time around I found the movie charming and occasionally insightful. So maybe something can be said said for geezer-years, after all.
