New Picture

Young at Heart (Warner), a remake of Fannie Hurst's Four Daughters (1938), is intended as a tearjerker but rates only one piece of Kleenex.

Three pretty sisters (Doris Day, Dorothy Malone, Elisabeth Fraser) live a quiet, homey, small-town life with their father (Robert Keith) and aunt (Ethel Barrymore). Along comes a handsome, egotistical young composer (Gig Young) who sets everybody aflutter--but it is freckle-faced Doris who flips the most.

When it appears that Doris and Gig will make happy music together, bird-like Frank Sinatra shows up wearing a chip on his shoulder. Frankie, a saloon pianist and musical arranger, is on his uppers. "They," he says, looking up at the ceiling from where the Fates guide his misery, have never given him a break.

To conceal his tormented heart, he is cynical and wisecracking. He is also a genius at writing pop tunes, but "They" never let him finish one. .

On her wedding day, Doris leaves Gig at the altar with his ego and elopes with Frankie to a city hovel. There are the usual misunderstandings, more cruel blows from the Fates and an attempted suicide before the happy fadeout around the family piano.

Although he is made to glare at the ceiling too much, Sinatra otherwise acquits himself as a pretty fair actor. He gets to sing a few good songs (Just One of Those Things, Someone to Watch over Me), and turns them out with polish..

Singer Day does some capable chirping, too. As Aunt Jessie, Actress Barrymore has little to do or say, except purse her lips and murmur auntist profundities from the kitchen.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.