Meet Me At The Fair (1953)

In 1904, when a young child (boy soprano Chet Allen) runs away with his dog from a harsh orphanage, he's picked up by a "doctor" (Dan Dailey) and his assistant (Scatman Crothers) who sell tonic in their traveling medicine show. An attractive activist (Diana Lynn) insists the boy be returned but the Doc and boy have bonded. Based on the novel THE GREAT COMPANIONS by Gene Markey and directed by Douglas Sirk. This one is a real charmer that somehow doesn't sink into a morass of sentimentality given its plotline. Although it's categorized as a musical, it seems more like a heartwarming drama with musical interludes. The songs are inoffensive (that is, if you don't count Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey done in blackface) and it's colorful although in the print I saw the Technicolor was terribly faded. It's a film in need of some major restoration work but being minor Sirk, I don't see it happening anytime soon. With Hugh O'Brian (playing a rather nerdy and timid character instead of the tough guy for a change), Carole Mathews and Rhys Williams.