Get that man some pants!

Isn't' it odd how some of your favourite movie moments can come from movies you don't particularly like?

Take Two Weeks with Love, for example. I quite like many of the individual elements that went into making that movie, but find the movie itself leaves me unimpressed. Flat, you could say.

The Edwardian Era setting? Love it. Ricardo Montalban? Love him. Re-using sets, props and costumes from Annie Get Your Gun? Not sure if it's true, but love the idea. Debbie Reynolds singing about monkeys? What's not to love? I'm particularly fond of the dream sequence in which Jane Powell freaks out about being caught not wearing a corset and, of course, the moment when her understanding father stands up for a young man at the camp by insisting his father lets him graduate from short-pants to proper trousers:

"Get that man some pants!" Love it.

But... somehow the movie itself leaves me feeling underwhelmed. Maybe it's because all of the "teenagers" looked to old for their parts. Granted, the were in their early 20s, which is still pretty normal for movie teens, but I just couldn't buy Jane Powell as a sixteen-year-old.

Maybe its just that they were trying to hard to be mad-cap and "gay", and falling a touch short.

Maybe I just don't like Jane Powell's acting style/singing voice in this film. I didn't mind her in Royal Wedding or Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, but in this film she reminds me of Betty Hutton, who annoys the dickens out of me in every film I've seen of hers.

For many years I used to get those two confused. I thought Jane Powell was in The Greatest Show on Earth (which wasn't that great, let's face it). Then I watched Annie Get Your Gun and thought "Man, this Betty Hutton chick is as much of a ham as that Jane Powell girl from that circus movie". I think the confusion came from seeing both Two Weeks and Greatest Show at roughly the same time during my childhood. The two look similar enough for someone who isn't watching too closely...