It’s no secret that the Hollywood Comet loves musicals.
In 2010, I revealed I had seen 400 movie musicals over the course of eight years. Now that number is over 600. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is my weekly feature about musicals.

You Can’t Run Away From It, poster, US poster art, from left: June Allyson, Jack Lemmon 1956. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)

This week’s musical:
You Can’t Run Away From It (1956) – Musical #302

Studio:
Columbia Pictures

Director:
Dick Powell

Starring:
June Allyson, Jack Lemmon, Charles Bickford, Paul Gilbert, Jim Backus, Stubby Kaye, Jacques Scott, Henny Youngman, Allyn Joslyn, Louise Beavers, Jack Albertson, Madge Blake (uncredited), Barrie Chase (uncredited)

Plot:
Ellie Andrews (Allyson), an heiress who marries playboy and racecar driver, Jacques Ballarino (Scott). Ellie’s wealthy Texas rancher father, A. A. Andrews (Bickford) disapproves and tries to keep them apart. When Ellie escapes her father to make her way back to Jacques, she meets reporter Peter Warne (Lemmon), who helps her travels cross country to Houston, in hopes of breaking a big story.

Trivia:
• Musical remake of IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1933). Another musical remake was made was EVE KNEW HER APPLES (1945).
• Both directed and produced by Dick Powell. Powell and June Allyson were married at the time.

Highlights:
• Jack Lemmon singing
• When it ended

Notable Songs:
• “Howdy Friends and Neighbors” performed by Stubby Kaye, Jack Lemmon and June Allyson

My review:
Actress June Allyson came from the Broadway stage to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer during the World War II era. She belted out a number in BEST FOOT FORWARD (1943) and remembered as a little girl with a big, slightly funny voice. It was the World War II musical, TWO GIRLS AND A SAILOR (1944) that put Allyson (and Van Johnson and Gloria DeHaven) on the map and catapulted the young stars into stardom.

But as the late 1950s approached, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s film output began to change and June Allyson’s career shifted. She went from innocent young girls to perfect wives to odd roles that didn’t really fit her persona. Specifically, Allyson found herself in a series of remakes of 1930s comedies:
– A 1957 remake of MY MAN GODFREY (1936), featuring the same title with David Niven in the William Powell role.
A musical remake of THE WOMEN (1939), titled THE OPPOSITE SEX (1956), which featured men, rather than the all-female cast like the original.
– And this week’s Musical Monday, the a musical remake of IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934)

Matching the original nearly scene-for-scene, in the film, June Allyson plays Ellie Andrews, an heiress who marries playboy and racecar driver, Jacques Ballarino (Jacques Scott). Ellie’s wealthy Texas rancher father, A. A. Andrews (Charles Bickford) disapproves and tries to keep them apart. When Ellie escapes her father to make her way back to Jacques, she meets reporter Peter Warne (Jack Lemmon), who helps her travels crosscountry to Houston, in hopes of breaking a big story.

Now, YOU CAN’T RUN AWAY FROM IT (1956) isn’t the first musical remake of the IT HAPPENED ON NIGHT (1934). Columbia remade their film featuring Ann Miller in a fun, brief musical, EVE KNEW HER APPLES (1945), which is lower budget and somehow better than this 1956 version. Perhaps it’s because EVE KNEW HER APPLES feels like its own film. For example, Miller’s character is a radio star.

In this 1956 remake, the only changes to the original film is that the destination is Texas rather than New York and they’ve added songs. Everything else is nearly exactly the same as the original: a stolen suitcase, singing on the bus, dad ordering a steak while he talks to his daughter on the boat. Jim Backus sings even, “young people in love are seldom hungry,” but it’s less funny than when Alan Hales does it.

However, some (or most) scenes just didn’t work. For example, in the scene where they act like a trashy, arguing couple to evade detectives. In the 1934 version, it’s hilarious. In this version, it’s awful. In fact, Allyson shows her face while Colbert keeps her hair combed down around her face.

Individually, I love June Allyson and Jack Lemmon. But together, they do not work. I can’t think of another pair that would have done a better job in a musical remake. Maybe this film just shouldn’t have happen.

There’s a scene where June Allyson dances while dressed like a scarecrow – this is not what June Allyson does … ever. It went on far too long. I love June Allyson (unlike most people, it seems) but this felt ridiculous.

Charles Bickford was also poorly cast. Bickford always plays a great, gruff character, but is no match for the heart-of-gold father character played by Walter Connolly in IT HAPPENED ON NIGHT (1934). And what was the point of even having Allyn Joslyn appear as the editor? Joslyn is wasted and we barely see him, where the editor (played by Charles C. Wilson in IT HAPPENED ON NIGHT) is a much larger role.

The film is produced and directed by actor and Allyson’s husband, Dick Powell, who starred in musicals for most of his career before turning to film noirs, and later, directing films. Perhaps starring in musicals doesn’t always translate well to directing them.

But I don’t want to put all the fault on Powell’s direction. It’s really the fact that a musical remake concept was brought up at all.

The highly talented Johnny Mercer wrote the songs for this film with Gene de Paul. In my opinion, Mercer is one of the greatest songwriters of all time, with credits to his name like “Accenture the Positive,” Zippideedooda” and the music for SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS. But the songs in this film are stinkers. There is even a song about the walls of Jericho. Why?

But “Why?” was the running theme of this musical remake. If you’re a completist like me, you’ll watch every remake or every film of your favorite actors.

But overall, YOU CAN’T RUN AWAY FROM IT (1956) never should have happened.