This week a plotline thinner than a new england clam chowder or bathwater...but enough heart to warm your soul. Never has a film been so full of nonsensical songs and so empty of plot but at the same time so utterly charming. Check out Summer Magic from 1963.
Storyline :Disney musical about Margaret Carey (Dorothy McGuire), a Bostonian widow and her three children who move to Maine. Postmaster Ostia "Osh" Popham (Burl Ives) helps them move into a run-down old house and fixes it up for them. It's not entirely uninhabited, though. The owner, a Mr. Tom Hamilton (Peter Brown), is a mysterious character away in Europe, but Osh assures them he won't mind their living there, since he won't be coming home for a long time yet. The children and a cousin who comes to live with them have various adventures before an unexpected visitor shows up.
Directors: James Neilson
Writers: Sally Benson and Kate Douglas Wiggin
Stars: Hayley Mills, Burl Ives, Dorothy McGuire, and Deborah Walley
Awards: 0 Wins & 1 Nominations
Film Budget: Unknown
Gross Worldwide: Unknown
We were not expecting this one to be so full of musical numbers but Summer Magic actually has a pretty deep soundtrack. Pink of Perfection is personally one of our favorites.
THAT WONDERFUL HAYLEY! a-flitterin' in a romantic whirl of her own!
One of the paintings considered by Ossian "Osh" Popham (Burl Ives) to be Mrs. Hamilton is now hanging in the Golden Horseshoe at Disneyland.
Originally planned as a movie for Annette Funicello.
In the scene when they are planning to move to Beulah Maine, the passage from the Bible that Hayley Mills quotes is in Isaiah 62.
We don't understand why it's always these underrated older movies that don't make it onto Disney+ but unfortunately at the time of this posting Summer Magic is not available on Disney+. You can rent it on amazon at the link below.