Janie (1944)

Robert Hutton, Edward Arnold, Ann Harding, Robert Benchley, Alan Hale ... see more  , Claire Foley , Barbara Brown , Hattie McDaniel , Jackie Moran , Ann Gillis , Ruth Tobey , Virginia Patton , Colleen Townsend , William Frambes , Russell Hicks , Joyce Reynolds , John Alvin , William Benedict , Monte Blue , Eddie Bruce , Warren Burr , Sunset Carson , Michael Carter , Lane Chandler , Tanis Chandler , Jimmie Dodd , John Forrest , Joe "Corky" Geil , Joe Gilbert , Dan Jackson , Roger McGee , Virginia Sale , Truman van Dyke , Keefe Brasselle , Douglas Cooper , Richard Erdman , Norman Salling , Sandy Shaw , Kirk Barron , William Hunter , James Menzies , Georgia Lee Settle , John Nelson

Janie, adapted from the Broadway play by Josephine Bentham and Herschel Williams, was one of a 1940s cycle of stage-to-film comedies about teenagers. Joyce Reynolds stars as Janie, a typical teen whos... read more e life is turned topsy turvy by the installation of a military base near her home town. Edward Arnold and Ann Harding, exasperated and understanding respectively, play Janie's parents. Robert Hutton is the soldier and Richard Erdman the hometown boy who vie for Janie's attentions. The film is cloying at times, but survives as a reasonably accurate representation of teenage life in the war years, right down to the "coded slang" used to throw parents off the track. Janie ends with the Army marching out and the Marines marching in, leaving the door wide open for a sequel, which appeared in 1946 under the title Janie Gets Married. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi