Pine Thomas were known for their action films but decided to try a musical here - perhaps because they had a good relationship with former song and dance man John Payne, as well as Rhonda Fleming, who had been in Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
Payne dropped out and was replaced by Gene Barry who is okay. Fleming is so-so as well - she looks great in colour but isn't that much of a musical star (or even actor).
However the support cast of this is strong. Guy Mitchell is someone I have never heard of - a popular singer - he has an easy disposition and nice voice. Agnes Moorehead is always reliable. Teresa Brewer is inexperienced dramatically but sings well. The Bell Sisters (who play other sisters) are lively. Jean Parker is back in a support role.
It's got pep, is colourful, and has a great central idea - it's about a widow and her four daughters who wind up in Alaska. I'm partial to redheads and to "Northerns" so I guess I'm biased but it was lively, the tunes were fine. For musical neophytes, Pine-Thomas did a good job.
There are story problems. It wastes too much time with the girls not knowing the dad is dead - why not tell them straight up? They could still come to Alaska. It just results in these unpleasant "they don't know yet" moments which don't add to the story. It takes far too long for the girls to get active trying to make money, going into singing and running a newspaper etc - that should've been the core of it. The plot about who killed the girl's dad seems to be thrown on and the girls should've been involved in it -say one of the sisters falls for the killer or something, or is kidnapped by him. As it is, Barry just takes off to participate in his own action sequence without any redheads.
Even though it's a female centric story the core of it is still two rivals for the one person - though in this case it's two sisters (Fleming, Brewer) in love with a guy (Barry).
So a flawed film but quite fun.
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