NORMAN KRASNA

Bil’s rating (out of 5):  BB. 

USA, 1950.  Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.  Screenplay by Norman Krasna.  Cinematography by George J. Folsey.  Produced by Norman Krasna.  Music by Adolph Deutsch.  Production Design by Cedric Gibbons, Paul Groesse.  Costume Design by Helen Rose.  Film Editing by Fredrick Y. Smith.

Van Johnson is a law student who has been selected to work at a prestigious law firm thanks to his being the top of his class. He barely sniffs a drink at a firm party and gets ragingly drunk, inspiring the curiosity of amateur psychologist Elizabeth Taylor, who is also the boss’s daughter. Johnson reveals that he has a severe allergy to alcohol thanks to having hidden a number of days in a wine cellar during the war. She resolves to cure his problem, and how fifties is it that a doctor’s daughter wants to help a man who can’t drink alcohol; call it Country Club Morality if you will. He finds himself in a moral conundrum when a public defender (a wonderful Leon Ames) asks his firm to help the situation of a doctor who has been evicted from his apartment which is owned by one of the firm’s clients. A strange combination of elements makes for a bizarre film that is also weakly plotted, seemingly a comedy but featuring a lot of dark themes that it never quite resolves into its main flavor. Johnson and Taylor both give inane performances, likely the result of being thoroughly confused.