San Diego I Love You

And by Huttonesque I am talking about Betty Hutton, who, at the time this movie was made, was riding high over at Paramount as a bubbly blonde singing comedienne. Universal, with not nearly as much money as Paramount, has Louise Albritton in this role as Virginia McCooley, the oldest of five children - the rest are boys much younger than she - whose father is a widowed schoolteacher, Philip McCooley (Edward Everett Horton). Dad has invented a one man inflatable life raft, and he would like to sell it to the Navy, but is too afraid of leaving his safe teaching job. So Virginia quits dad's job for him, ends their lease, and moves their furniture to San Diego - without notifying dad first.

So off this family goes to San Diego, at that time the headquarters of the Pacific Fleet, and during wartime there is practically a no vacancy sign at the city limits, it is so packed with sailors and government personnel. The McCooleys don't know any of this, they are just feeling their way through getting a place and getting dad's invention accepted by the navy. But there is another road block besides housing. On the train to San Diego the McCooleys managed to anger someone who happens to be a very important person - the owner of the railroad, the third richest person in the US, and the arbiter of what inventions get accepted by the Navy's civilian research branch. And this guy, a young eligible bachelor, does not trust women because he figures they are all after his fortune. So if Virginia hopes to make inroads with him she will have to tread carefully.

With Buster Keaton as a bus driver who is in a rut, Irene Ryan as somebody who mistakes the McCooley home as a boarding house and is determined to hold on tight to what she thinks is her new room, and Eric Blore once again gets to make Horton's life miserable as an incompetent and unwanted gentleman's gentleman.

It is funny independent of the time in which it is made, but it is also great as a history lesson about life on the homefront in 1944. Highly recommended.

As for Louise Albritton, Universal's own Betty Hutton, you may have never heard of her before, but not because she hit the skids. She married in 1946 and eventually dropped out of show business to raise a family in the post war baby boom tradition, dying in 1979 after 33 years of marriage. A much happier ending to her tale than to poor Betty Hutton's tragic life.

I was happily surprised at the enjoyment this little film provided. It could be described as a screwball comedy, I suppose, but it never gets carried away with itself and stays committed to what really amounts to a mostly subtly comedic sequence of vignettes. There are so many opportunities for this film to become just a silly and hectic hodgepodge but admirably the fantasy-like story is made to seem enjoyably plausible.

The players are just so engaging and the little moves and bits of business exhibited by the cast, especially Louise Allbritton, are admirable. She is gorgeous and her eyes are particularly fascinating. I was particularly impressed by the restrained and excellent performance by Edward Everett Horton...his is the effort that, if not held in check, could have sunk the picture. Luckily, too, the youngsters in the film were not allowed to run amok and bring the picture down. And what can be said of Buster Keaton's appearance... it is as affectingly priceless as the entire bus episode is affectingly unique.

One reviewer found it odd that the story was set in San Diego during the War and that no sailors and soldiers are evident. But there are, for I actually looked for that very thing during a brief street scene and indeed there is a liberal peppering of sailors walking the street in the parade of passers-by. Whether on the street, in the office, or in the home, the sets are decked out appropriately. Additionally, the film's editing is crisp and continuity is wonderful.

For sure this is a fantasy, including the curiosity that the third richest man in America would happily fall for the propellant of a small-town eccentric family. But this is a successfully comedic film from the World War II era and no doubt will be enjoyed by fans of movies from the era.

High school teacher Edward Everett Horton invents an all-in-one inflatable lifeboat, and tries to sell it to the advisory board run by Jon Hall, the third richest man in America. Through a series of situations impelled by his hair-brained daughter, Louise Allbritton, he finds himself buying a house in San Diego with his last money, and moving in with her and his four motherless sons, although the raft has been rejected. Miss Allbritton won't give up, and eventually charms Hall, although the raft remains rejected.

It's larded with subplots, some of which work -- Miss Allbritton persuades bus driver Buster Keaton into leaving the route he's been driving for ten years, and instead driving along the seashore, for a charming excursion -- and some do not. Irene Ryan shows up as a boarder, even though the house is not accepting them; and Eric Blore is a butler attached to the house, who bursts into tears whenever he's fired. The romantic leads are not very appealing. Miss Allbritton is shrill, and Hall is stuffy. Still, the cast is filled with fine comics, including Clarence Muse, Florence Lake, Chester Clute, Brooks Benedict, Hobart Cavanaugh, Vernon Dent, and Esther Howard, and even Tom Keene as a reporter. If the reasons why this has been hard to find so long are apparent from a viewing, I'm still glad I saw it, if only for the Keaton sequence.

"San Diego I Love You" is a light and silly family comedy. This is a Universal film in the days when that studio was not among the Big Five. Along with Columbia and United Artists, it made up a second tier of studios. The Big Five were marked by large theater chains and big studio lots to support them. They also could pay more and sought out and got the best actors and actresses. Of course, with more studios their actors became more familiar to the public. The stars of the various studios might appear in occasional films with other studios by loan outs or other deals.

The leads in this film are Louise Allbritton and Jon Hall. They were a couple of the leading performers of Universal at the time. Allbritton was in a number of films with other big name stars, either filmed by Universal with trades, or on loan out herself to another studio. By 1950 she moved almost exclusively into TV series and films. Jon Hall had been a leading man at Universal since 1935. He appeared in a number of swashbuckler and adventure films. Most of those are forgotten or little known in the 21st century, although a few were very good films. Hall's star began to fade in the early 1950s, and by the end of that decade his movie career was all but ended.

One nice attribute of this film is the supporting cast. It includes Edward Everett Horton, Eric Blore and Buster Keaton.

The date of this film is 1944, so World War II was still going strong. There's no mention of the war and no sign of it at all in this film. Considering that it takes place in San Diego, it was strange that it doesn't have scenes with many men and women in uniform. Especially the Navy, since San Diego was and is a major naval base.

A strange scene is the bus driving on the shore. There aren't many spots where a vehicle could get onto the beach at or near San Diego. If it was filmed there and not somewhere else along the coast, it probably was Dog Beach in the NW corner of the city where the San Diego River runs through Mission valley and empties into the ocean. It's just south of the Mission Bay Channel entrance. A beach access parking lot has been there since the late 20th century, but I don't know if it was there in 1944.

Allbritton plays a cheerful and chipper Virginia McCooley in this film. Horton is her dad, Philip, who was a high school science teacher until he came up with an invention that might have takers. Hall plays John Thompson Caldwell, the wealthy chairman of a large company that may be interested in the invention. But his character is very wooden in this film. Blore plays Nelson, the butler and handyman who goes with the house that the McCooley's buy in San Diego. Keaton plays a bus driver who has driven the exact same boring route for more than 20 years.

Most people would probably enjoy this film. It's not raucous comedy or a barrel of laughs. It has humorous situations and a sprinkling of funny lines. Mostly, it has warmth and a light-hearted feel for a family on a new adventure.

Here are some favorite lines.

Philip McCooley, "You mean to tell me that you resigned for me over the telephone to the principal of the high school?" Virginia McCooley, "He thought it was a little unusual too, at first. Then I told him you were just too bashful to admit the reason."

Philip McCooley, "What are you doing with that piece of furniture?" Moving Man, "Why, I'm growing mushrooms in it. One side, buddy."

Virginia McCooley, "Well, why all the fuss? What does San Diego think it is - Washington, D.C.?" Hotel clerk, "Lady, we pride ourselves on having more confusion per square inch in San Diego than Washington ever heard of."

Terrific little comedy from Universal. I didn't expect much and watched only to see the great Buster Keaton in a supporting role. But this is a solid and wacky little comedy about a pushy daughter (Louise Allbritton) and her inventor father (Edward Everett Horton) in their attempts to crash the corporate headquarters of a company in San Diego run by a reclusive millionaire (Jon Hall). The situations may be very TV but in 1945 this was fresh material. But the cast is tops and saves this one.

Eric Blore is hilarious as the "family retainer." Irene Ryan as the wayward tenant is also very funny. I also spotted Almira Sessions, Florence Lake, Chester Clute, Hobart Cavanaugh, Esther Howard, Sara Selby, Dewey Robinson, Vernon Dent, and many other great character actors.

Certainly worth a look.....