''April Love'' is an American musical directed by Henry Levin and produced by David Weisbart, based on the novel ''Phantom Filly'' by George Agnew Chamberlain (New York City, 1941). Photographed in CinemaScope and

DeLuxe Color DeLuxe Color or Deluxe color or Color by DeLuxe is Deluxe Laboratories brand of color process for motion pictures. DeLuxe Color is Eastmancolor-based, with certain adaptations for improved compositing for printing (similar to Technicolor's "sel ...

by Wilfred M. Cline, it was the fourth most popular movie of 1957 and stars

Pat Boone Patrick Charles Eugene Boone (born June 1, 1934) is an American singer and actor. He was a successful pop singer in the United States during the 1950s and early 1960s. He sold more than 45 million records, had 38 Top 40 hits, and appeared in mo ...

Shirley Jones Shirley Mae Jones (born March 31, 1934) is an American actress and singer. In her six decades in show business, she has starred as wholesome characters in a number of musical films, such as '' Oklahoma!'' (1955), ''Carousel'' (1956), and ''The M ...

, Arthur O'Connell, Dolores Michaels,

Matt Crowley Matt Crowley (June 20, 1905 – March 7, 1983) was an American film, television and radio actor. Life and career Matt Crowley was born in New Haven, Connecticut. He was a student of George Pierce Baker at Yale University. As an actor, Crowl ...

Jeanette Nolan Jeanette Nolan (December 30, 1911 – June 5, 1998) was an American actress. Nominated for four Emmy Awards, she had roles in the television series '' The Virginian'' (1962–1971) and ''Dirty Sally'' (1974), and in films such as ''Macbeth'' ...

and Bradford Jackson. The

title song A title is one or more words used before or after a person's name, in certain contexts. It may signify either generation, an official position, or a professional or academic qualification. In some languages, titles may be inserted between the f ...

, sung by Boone, went to number one on the ''Billboard'' Chart in December 1957 and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Plot

Nick Conover (

), a

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

youth, arrives at his aunt Henrietta (

) and uncle Jed Bruce's ( Arthur O'Connell)

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...

horse farm. Neither has seen Nick since he was a child. The move is part of Nick's

parole Parole (also known as provisional release or supervised release) is a form of early release of a prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by certain behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated parole officers, or ...

condition after being

convicted In law, a conviction is the verdict reached by a court of law finding a defendant guilty of a crime. The opposite of a conviction is an acquittal (that is, "not guilty"). In Scotland, there can also be a verdict of " not proven", which is co ...

for joyriding in a stolen vehicle with his friends. Jed initially does not want Nick in his home, and Nick gradually realizes that the reason Jed is hostile to him stems from the loss of his only son, Jed Bruce Jr. who was killed in the

Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...

. Jed, who once raised, trained, and raced horses for harness racing, has neglected the farm. Only one horse remains, a spirited and largely unmanageable stallion named Tugfire, his son's favorite. Nick's disinterest and lack of knowledge of horses is first seen when he gets into the

corral A pen is an enclosure for holding livestock. It may also perhaps be used as a term for an enclosure for other animals such as pets that are unwanted inside the house. The term describes types of enclosures that may confine one or many animal ...

alone with Tugfire, who charges him. Nick meets the Bruces' neighbors, the Templetons, after the younger Templeton daughter, Liz (

), arrives to invite Jed and Nick to their farm. Nick goes, and is amazed at how lavish the Templeton farm is compared to his aunt and uncle's. Liz is the

tomboy A tomboy is a term for a girl or a young woman with masculine qualities. It can include wearing androgynous or unfeminine clothing and actively engage in physical sports or other activities and behaviors usually associated with boys or men. W ...

and farm lover who has a crush on Nick, while her elder sister Fran ( Dolores Michaels) is the sophisticate who is dating Al Turner (Bradford Jackson). While Liz rides a

sulky A sulky is a lightweight cart with two wheels and a seat for the driver, generally pulled by horses or dogs. With horses, a sulky is used for harness racing. The term is also used for an arch-mounted cart on wheels or crawler tracks, used i ...

out around the track, Nick, ignoring Liz, is attracted to Fran and her Austin-Healey sports car, and she allows him to inspect the engine. He declines Fran's offer to let him drive the car, avoiding explaining that his driver's license was revoked. His love of mechanics again becomes evident when he fixes Jed's

tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or construction. Most commo ...

and, with Jed's approval, fixes the old

jalopy A decrepit car is a car that is often old and damaged and is in a barely functional state. There are many slang terms used to describe such cars, the more popular including junk car, beater, clunker, hooptie, jalopy, shitbox, junker, and banger ...

sitting in the barn with the help of Liz. Nick spends time with both Templeton girls and sees Liz as a "good sport" and Fran as girlfriend material, though she is with Al. The four get along well together, despite Liz knowing that Nick is attracted to Fran. At a barbecue, Nick boasts to Fran that his jalopy could outperform her sports car in a drag race. Fran suggests they race on a back country road. Even though it violates his parole condition, Nick agrees. During the race, Fran drives off the road, crashing her car through a fence, though she and Al escape unharmed. While driving his jalopy around the track, Nick spooks Tugfire, who jumps the corral fence and runs off. Tugfire, tangled in prickly

bramble A bramble is any rough, tangled, prickly shrub, usually in the genus ''Rubus'', which grows blackberries, raspberries, or dewberries. "Bramble" is also used to describe other prickly shrubs, such as roses (''Rosa'' species). The fruits inclu ...

s, is freed by Nick. Jed and Henrietta are surprised to see a calm Tugfire being led by Nick. Jed resolves to train a reluctant Nick to ride Tugfire in harness races, and Nick's training eventually improves. Shortly before the harness races at the Bentonville Fair, Tugfire falls ill after Nick leaves him in the corral during a severe storm. The vet does what he can to treat Tugfire. Late into the night with Nick, Liz and Uncle Jed keeping vigil, Tugfire gets up. After a quick examination, Jed believes he will be able to race. In the excitement of Tugfire's improved condition, Liz gives Nick a quick

kiss A kiss is the touch or pressing of one's lips against another person or an object. Cultural connotations of kissing vary widely. Depending on the culture and context, a kiss can express sentiments of love, passion, romance, sexual attraction, ...

, which finally makes Nick see Liz in a more romantic light. At the fair, Nick and Liz declare their romantic interest to each other, culminating with them almost kissing on the

ferris wheel A Ferris wheel (also called a Giant Wheel or an observation wheel) is an amusement ride consisting of a rotating upright wheel with multiple passenger-carrying components (commonly referred to as passenger cars, cabins, tubs, gondolas, capsule ...

. About the races, Nick is told that he only has to win one of the two heats to make it into the finals. He and Tugfire do win the first heat, largely because he was an unknown racer, and thus no one paid any attention to him. In the second heat, he is boxed in by the Templetons' rider, their wheels locked. As the Templetons' rider will not let him pass on the inside, Nick hastily tries to muscle his way through. He crashes and the sulky is damaged. Jed decides to pull Nick and Tugfire from the finals, realizing that he placed too much pressure on Nick. Nick, however, wants to race in the finals, with a sulky donated by Mr. Templeton, and Jed watches from the sidelines as Nick uses his earlier training and drives down the stretch to win the race. However, immediately after the race, the local sheriff arrives to arrest Nick and send him back to Chicago for parole violation. Not knowing it would cause any problems, Fran filed an accident report about her

automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarde ...

crash, stating Nick was driver of the other vehicle. Liz steps in to say that Fran was mistaken, and that she was the driver, a story which Fran and Henriette falsely corroborate. Nick, wanting to do the right thing, confesses that Fran's report is correct. The sheriff decides to let Nick stay in Kentucky, having been told by Mr. Templeton to do so since it was a minor infraction and no one got hurt, much to everyone else's relief.

Cast

as Nick Conover *

as Liz Templeton * Dolores Michaels as Fran Templeton * Arthur O'Connell as Jed Bruce *

as Dan Templeton *

as Henrietta Bruce * Bradford Jackson as Al Turner

Production

The movie was a remake of '' Home in Indiana'' (1944) and was originally called ''Young in Love''. Filming began in June 1957, before the public had seen Boone's first move '' Bernardine''. It took place in Hollywood and on location in Kentucky. At the beginning of the shoot in Kentucky, Boone was in a car accident while filming a scene. He was a passenger in a car which was to be overtaken by a car driven by two local girls; the cars collided but Boone was uninjured. Boone did not kiss Shirley Jones on screen for fear of upsetting his wife.

Reception

The film was a hit at the box office. ''Kinematograph Weekly'' listed it as being "in the money" at the British box office in 1958.

Critical

Most critical notices of the film tended to be mixed.

Leonard Maltin Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic and film historian, as well as an author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives. He is perhaps best known for his book of fi ...

described it as an "engaging musical" while ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

Bosley Crowther Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. (July 13, 1905 – March 7, 1981) was an American journalist, writer, and film critic for ''The New York Times'' for 27 years. His work helped shape the careers of many actors, directors and screenwriters, though his ...

said it had "two of the nicest-looking young singers to be found anywhere, a batch of pleasant tunes, some nifty Kentucky scenery in good color and absolutely no plot." Harold Whitehead of ''

The Montreal Gazette The ''Montreal Gazette'', formerly titled ''The Gazette'', is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Three other daily English-language newspapers shuttered at various times during the second half of th ...

'' observed that it was a "long, slow musical romance", and in particular noted that Boone, "the respectable hero of the teen-agers, seems to have worked so hard at gaining his reputation that he has turned himself into a rather pompous young man." Boone regards it as one of his favorites, "the kind of movie I wish I could have made 20 more of: a musical, appealing characters, some drama, a good storyline, a happy ending, it's the kind of film which makes you feel good. I never wanted to make a depressing or immoral film." Reviewing this, ''Diabolique'' magazine later wrote "Why didn't he? The film was a hit...And it wasn't as if Fox lacked Americana stories in their back catalog that they could remake: ''Kentucky'' (1938), ''Maryland'' (1940), ''Margie'' (1946), ''Smoky'' (1946), ''Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay!'' (1948), etc. The only other remake he'd wind up doing was State Fair and that wasn't even a star vehicle. Why didn't someone put him together with Jones again? The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists: * 2004: AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs: ** " April Love" – Nominated

References

* Solomon, Aubrey. ''Twentieth Century-Fox, A Corporate and Financial History (The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series)''. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1989. .

External links

* * * {{Henry Levin 1957 films 1950s romantic musical films 1950s teen films 20th Century Fox films American romantic musical films 1950s English-language films Films scored by Alfred Newman Films based on American novels Films directed by Henry Levin Films set in Kentucky Films shot in Kentucky American horse racing films CinemaScope films 1950s American films