Stuck for a musical vehicle for their fast-rising songstress Doris Day, Warners took the Penrod stories that had been filmed before and (making the central character Day's younger brother) crossed them with Meet Me in St Louis, added period songs and set the whole thing in a small Indiana town around 1917. Day and Gordon MacRae are more than pleasant company, but it's the supporting cast (and colour photography) that really make this one glow: Leon Ames (especially good) as the father suspected of drunkenness; Rosemary DeCamp as mother; Ellen Corby as the schoolma'am; Mary Wickes as the acid family maid; and Billy Gray as the rumour-spreading brother.

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