Dave-El's Weekend Movie Post: I Love Melvin

Today's edition of Dave-El's Weekend Movie Post takes a look at a movie co-starring Debbie Reynolds and Donald O'Connor after their triumphant appearance in Singin' In the Rain. 

MGM was hoping for a reprise of that success by quickly getting Reynolds and O'Connor into another musical comedy as quickly as possible. 

What they got was I Love Melvin. 

Which was NO Singin' In the Rain. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  

Small-time actress Judy Schneider dreams of becoming a Hollywood star even as she struggles along playing a human football in a kitschy Broadway musical.

One day in Central Park she bumps into Melvin, the bumbling assistant to a Look magazine photographer.  

It is not a pleasant encounter. 

Melvin later meets Judy again backstage at her show and makes a better impression. Melvin really likes Judy and Judy sorta thinks Mevlins is kinda cute.  

Meanwhile her overbearing father is really pushing her to Marry Harry Flack, a wealthy heir who is boring as hell.  

Melvin keeps doing photo shoots of Judy as an excuse to hang around with vague promises of getting her into Look magazine, on the cover even. 

Things take a bad turn when despite Melvin's persistent entreaties to his editor to feature Judy in the magazine, the editor keeps overlooking Melvin's pitches and the promises to get Judy into Look are biting Melvin in the ass.    

A dummy copy of Look with Judy on the cover is misconstrued by Judy and her family that she is going to be in the magazine with Melvin unable to get a word in edgewise to set anyone straight. 

As issues of Look keep hitting the newstands without Judy on the cover, the frustration of Judy and her family continues to grow and Melvin disappears. 

Ashamed by his failure, Melvin throws himself in front of a subway train as a sobbing Judy is dragged away to an insane asylum, screaming, "I love Melvin!" 

...

...

No, not really. 

Come on! It's an MGM Technicolor movie musical from 1953. Of course there will be a happy ending. Melvin and Judy will wind up together and in love. 

Judy's descent into pain killer addiction won't happen until after the final credits roll. 

The "It's That Person Who Was In That Thing" Department

• Richard Anderson was Harry Flack. I knew him as Oscar Goldman in The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman. 
• Mergo, the photographer Melvin worked for, was played by Jim Backus. It took me a moment to make the connection because Backus wasn't leaning as hard into snooty upper crust accent he employed as Thurston Howell on Gilligan's Island. 

I Love Melvin was a rushed production to capitalize on the notoriety of Debbie Reynolds and Donald O'Connor post Singin' In the Rain. And the seams kind of show. 

The story is slim, lacking any depth or even suspense. It's right there in the title that Judy will choose Melvin over safe and boring Harry.   There are no stakes to the outcome.

Perhaps the most notable aspect of I Love Melvin for the more purient minded is Debbie Reynold's performance as.... a human football.  

I will be blunt: Debbie as a football is what got my attention when TCM ran promos for the movie.  

There is an opening dream sequence where Judy is a glamorous film actress beloved by cast and crew alike who sashays through a sultry musical number like Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

It's a bad idea for a movie to remind us of a much better movie. 

But Debbie Reynolds is a sexy human football. 

So I Love Melvin has got that going for it.