April 2 movie: Holiday in Mexico. I watched this silly bit of fluff while backing up the entire contents of my computer in preparation for sending it off to the nice folks at Applecare. More on that later. First, the movie!
Jane Powell, teenage daughter of the US ambassador to Mexico, is clearly destined to be with Roddy McDowell, son of the British ambassador. Unfortunately she has a major father complex and ends up falling for Jose Iturbi. Meanwhile the teenage daughter of the French (?) ambassador falls for Powell's father. Hilarity ensues!
The description sounds rather creepy, but to my relief the would-be January-December romances are treated as wildly inappropriate by all the adults involved. Well, almost all -- the French ambassador is totally fine with US ambassador marrying his young daughter. The US ambassador has to pretend to be a gold-digging boor to get rid of them. Which is presented as an example of his diplomatic skills, protecting the girl from looking foolish. But it seems to me that destroying a relationship with a colleague isn't such a hot move, diplomatically speaking.
On the bright side, there's a lot of singing and music from Powell, Iturbi, and Xavier Cugat (who has a small part which mainly involves carrying around a chihuahua and avoiding a jealous girlfriend). Roddy McDowell is bizarrely sweet as the nerdy British ambassador's kid.
I just realized something really weird about this movie: It's called Holiday in Mexico but nobody in it is on holiday. They all live in Mexico. Huh!
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