Janie (1944 film)

Janie
Janie
Directed by	Michael Curtiz
Screenplay by	Charles Hoffman; Agnes Christine Johnston
Based on	Janie (1942 play); by Josephine Bentham; Herschel V. Williams Jr.
Produced by	Alex Gottlieb
Starring	Joyce Reynolds; Robert Hutton
Narrated by	Alex Gottlieb
Cinematography	Carl E. Guthrie
Edited by	Owen Marks
Music by	Heinz Roemheld
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date	September 2, 1944;
Running time	102 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Janie is a 1944 film directed by Michael Curtiz, based on a 1942 Broadway play by Josephine Bentham and Herschel V. Williams Jr.^[1] The play was adapted from Bentham's 1940 novel by the same name.

Plot edit

Janie is a free-spirited teenager living in a small town. But her father, the local newspaper publisher, opposes the establishment of an army camp nearby. Janie and her bobby soxer friends are excited at the prospect of having so many young soldiers nearby. She dates one of them, which makes her boyfriend jealous.

Cast edit

Joyce Reynolds as Janie Conway
Robert Hutton as Pfc. Dick Lawrence
Edward Arnold as Charles Conway
Ann Harding as Lucille Conway
Alan Hale as Professor Reardon
Robert Benchley as John Van Brunt
Clare Foley as Elsbeth Conway
Barbara Brown as Thelma Lawrence
Hattie McDaniel as April
Richard Erdman as Scooper Nolan
Jackie Moran as Mickey the Sailor
Ann Gillis as Paula Rainey
Russell Hicks as Colonel Lucas
Ruth Tobey as Bernadine Dodd
Virginia Patton as Carrie Lou
Colleen Townsend as Hortense Bennett
William Frambes as Private Hackett

Unbilled players include Keefe Brasselle, Jimmie Dodd, Sunset Carson, Julie London, Virginia Sale and the Williams Brothers with Andy Williams.

Reception edit

In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther wrote: "The authors of Janie, play and picture, have simply cut a theatrical farce with some kids. And the bluntness with which they have done so provides very little warm appeal ... The performance of Joyce Reynolds in the title role is completely surface and pretentious; she had nothing with which to work."^[1]

The film was followed two years later by the sequel Janie Gets Married.