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Monday, March 30, 2020

It Happened To Jane (1959)

A single mother (Doris Day) raising two children (Teddy Rooney, Gina Gillespie) runs a fresh lobster business in Maine. But when a railroad tycoon (Ernie Kovacs) causes a delivery of her lobsters to die, she files a lawsuit. This small lawsuit barrels into a national case of her David against his Goliath. Directed by Richard Quine (BELL BOOK AND CANDLE), this folksy comedy about the little man (or woman in this case) against the machine is too Frank Capra-ish for my taste and it's one of Day's weakest star vehicles. The film was a box office failure but fortunately she was rescued later in the year with her biggest success, PILLOW TALK and her career took on a new trajectory. Day veers toward shrillness here and the script doesn't allow either she or Jack Lemmon as her boyfriend to shine. Indeed, the pedestrian screenplay muffles their star power. With Steve Forrest, Mary Wickes, Jayne Meadows, Betsy Palmer and Max Showalter. 

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