Make a Wish

CinemaSerf 6/20/2022 2:54:50PM 8.4

This is quite a curious little film with Basil Rathbone ("Johnny") as a composer who takes a cabin near a boys summer camp. There he encounters an engaging, outgoing, bunch of young boys who inspire him to overcome his writer's block and pen a blockbuster musical. Now, ordinarily, I'm with Herod when it comes to kids, even more so when they have a leading role - and sing, too - but Bobby Breen ("Chip") is actually rather good as the young man with whom Rathbone gradually bonds. He can certainly sing, and his mischief in trying to set up his widowed mother with the composer is charming and at times quite ingenious. It's suffers a little from being rather statically staged but Oscar Strauss and Paul Francis Webster's lyric is worth of a show of it's own and there's an innocence about the whole thing that is actually quite endearing. Not great, a wee bit sentimental - but worth watching, nonetheless.