Charles Boyer

Louis Jourdan

Marsha Hunt

Bobby Driscoll

Linda Christian

Kurt Kasznar

Marcel Dalio

Jeanette Nolan

Jack Raine

Richard Erdman

Marlene Cameron

Gene Collins

Annabel Faber

Kathryn Sheldon

Edward Clark

Maurice Marsac

Will Wright

Eugene Borden

Samuel A. Taylor

Earl Felton

Richard Fleischer

Rudolph Sternad

Charles Lawton Jr.

William A. Lyon

James Crowe

Carl Anderson

Stanley Kramer

Dimitri Tiomkin

Jean Louis

Robert Fontaine

Comedy

Romance

The Happy Time

Stanley Kramer Productions

Columbia Pictures

United States of America

CinemaSerf

Aside from "Treasure Island" (1950) this might be my favourite film featuring the charming Bobby Driscoll. He's the teenage "Robert/Bibi" who is completely oblivious to the affections of his next door neighbour because he only has eyes for the new maid "Mignonette" (Linda Christian). His obsessiveness starts to affect his schoolwork, and when the lovelorn "Peggy" (Marlene Cameron) doctors a rather risqué copy of "Paris Match" and gets him into hot water, things get so serious as to require the intervention of his dad (Charles Boyer) and two uncles (Louis Jourdan and Kurt Kasznar). They question him about the naughty photos and respect his denial whilst also clocking really quite quickly just what is troubling their young charge. Boyer is also on good form here, and I thought Richard Fleischer's amiable direction allowed the deftly adapted script to tell us a story of pubescent love mixed with familial concern and affection and peppered with some lovely, quite witty, observational humour. Driscoll was seventeen or so when he made this, so he probably had some genuine hormones to add to this genuinely quite enjoyable comedic drama. Don't be put off by the rather ropey title track, it's really quite good fun, this.

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Happy Time, The   Original Trailer