Tammy and the Bachelor

I came for the lyrical song, and stayed for the charm of a classic romcom. The critics may not thank Tammy's lovely Bible quotes, common sense, and straight-shooting psychological observations of life as a great movie, but I protest. Today, this film is counterculture to Hollywood. PSALM 92: "It is a good thing to give thanks unto the LORD, and to sing praises unto thy name, O most High:2 To shew forth thy lovingkindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night."

"Tammy and the Bachelor" is a comedy romance set in the Bayou country near New Orleans. This is the first of three films to be based on a 1948 novel, "Tammy Out of Time," by Cid Ricketts Sumner. Her story is about a girl, Tammy Tyree, raised on a riverboat away from modern society. She knows about civilization but is innocent and naïve about many of the ways of the world. She hasn't been exposed to the biases and prejudices of society, or of Southern racism. After her parents died, she was raised by her maternal grandparents, and she recently lost her grandma Dinwitty. So, that left her, as an older teen-ager, to live with her grandpa. The two take care of one another, with Tammy having learned how to pretty much survive on her own. And, while she may be ignorant of the ways of the world, she bears real wisdom based on her upbringing. They live off the land mostly. Tammy didn't go to school but learned to read and write, and was brought up learning the Bible. Grandpa Dinwitty is a part-time preacher who has run into trouble with the law over making illegal corn liquor in the swamps. One of the things Tammy hasn't learned to do yet is lie, or hedge facts or try to cover up or get around the truth. So, her frank, honest and straightforward talk often rankles the norms of proper society once she is exposed to the outside world. But, in the meantime, that honesty has a winning way with Peter Brent. He's a young man from the outside, aka "real" world, whom Grandpa Dinwitty and Tammy rescued when his plane crashed in the river. Debbie Reynolds stars in this first of what would become four films over 10 years. It's her film and she set the standard. The series, like most films with sequels declined after the original film. Reynolds sings the title song in the film, and it was later a number one hit that propelled the film to more popularity on its second release. "Tammy" had the 20th highest box office sales for the year. I saw it in the theater then, and watching it again recently, I found it to still be an endearing, sweet and wholesome picture. Because of its time and setting it's not a movie that is outdated. Young people - and older ones, too, in the 21st century can and still do enjoy this film. It's not a rollicking comedy but a wonderful story with humor, budding romance, and warmth that leave one with a good feeling. It's a breath of fresh air and decency in a world that often shows so much of the opposite with little faith and much anger, angst and strife. All of the cast are quite good. Veteran actor and three-time Oscar winner Walter Brennan plays Grandpa Dinwitty, but he's toted off to jail a quarter of the way into the film. A young Leslie Nielsen plays Peter Brent in one of the many fine early roles he had before becoming a middle-age comedy icon. The rest of a fine supporting cast includes some well-known actors of the day - Mildred Natwick, Sidney Blackmer, Fay Wray, Philip Ober and Louise Beavers. Here are some favorite lines from the film. Peter Brent, "Food, shelter, love, children and chickens! Tammy, is the whole world crazy, or is it you? And me... listening... almost believing?" Tammy, "Y'all talk so poor when you've got so much." Tammy, after dusting a shelf with lots of dust and Mrs. Brent saying her husband should move, "A man's got more hair in his nose than a woman and he don't breathe it like we do." Mrs. Brent, "Tammy, we do not discuss the hair in a man's nose." Tammy, "Oh, I'm sorry, Mrs. Brent."

source: Tammy and the Bachelor

Debbie Reynolds once again plays a barefoot backwoods naive maiden. This time she saves a strapping young man portrayed by Leslie Nielsen (as you've probably never seen him before) that crashes on the Mississippi near her houseboat. Soon her Grandpa gets hauled off to jail for selling illegal corn liquor and Debbie err Tammy sets out to find the young man and stays with his family for a spell. Tammy's kooky speech and naivete provide a variety of comical moments. Worth a rental if you are a Debbie Reynolds fan.

It's hard to believe that Debbie Reynolds did this movie 5 years after Singin' In The Rain. It seems like she should have played Tammy 5 years before Singin'. Reynolds infuses some complexity in the role - check out her sly grin when Leslie Nielsen picks her up in the barn. It's a role that could easily have been annoying to audiences but Reynolds never loses a viewers affections. In the two sequels Sandra Dee came very close to crossing that annoying line. Besides Reynolds, the other treat is the great cast around her. It was fun to see a young Leslie Nielsen in a straight role as the leading man and Mildred Natwick does her usual excellent job (why did she never get more Oscar recognition). Fay Wray, Walter Brennan, Philip Ober & Sidney Blackmer also do a great job. The director, Joseph Pevney, should get credit for keeping the story moving forward and not getting bogged down in the corny aspects of the movie. Had i been more than 1 years old when this movie came out, I'm sure it would have been a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Debbie Reynolds plays a 17-year-old girl from the bayou who goes to stay with a friendly pilot (Leslie Nielsen) and his society folks after her grandfather gets thrown into jail. Corny, yet also surprisingly sensitive growing-pains comedy-drama is silly and trite only in retrospect. The film treats its protagonist and her emotions quite sympathetically and the film is sweet without being nauseating. Good support from Walter Brennan, Fay Wray, and the always fun Mildred Natwick. Followed by two sequels in 1961 and 1963, with Sandra Dee taking over the role of Tammy, as well as a failed mid-'60s television series. **1/2 from ****

5 years after "Singin' in the Rain," Debbie Reynolds cemented her standing in Hollywood and make herself even more likable to her fans, with her role of "Tammy." Tammy lives with her grandpa, played by Walter Brennan, on his boat in the Mississippi swamps. Being one with nature from a young age, she has come to know that material things do not make one happy, but instead a deep relationship with her bible and God. She has had a quiet yet very contented childhood, but only just lately she has been yearning for someone to swoop down and get her and wondering if anything will ever happen to her. Life and love hit her in the form of Leslie Nielsen, when his plane crashes close by. He leaves them after he has recovered, not knowing he's taking her heart with him. I could tell you more, but suffice it to say she is brought into his upper-crust world and brings a breath of fresh air with her. If you love Debbie Reynolds and her buoyant personality, then this is a must for your list of films to see. The film may seem at times to be too simple and undemanding, but then again that's its appeal. It's a very fulfilling and uplifting little film. An added plus is seeing Debbie Reynolds singing, "Tammy," a very sweet song, which became a big hit for her own singing career. Costarring Mildred Natwick, who is yearning to break free from Leslie's eccentric family, this is a feel-good film that can be seen on TCM from time to time. If you miss it, it's your loss, and it's the reason why there's a smile on my face today. I can still see Debbie looking out the window singing, "Tammy, Tammy, Tammy's in love...."

I love all Tammy's movies. Someday I would like to own them. I think I am the youngest to ever love these movies at my age. My best one is Tammy and the Doctor. I would like to know if any one no where to buy her movies. Sandra Lee is a good Tammy but I think Debbie was just suite able for the role of Tammy. I am only 22 and I love old fashion movies.You might think I am a little weird but I love all old movies. My dad brought me up on these kinda of movies. I was wondering why all old movies had hardly any bad language in them like the movies know days have a ton of bad language in them you can't find one that doesn't. They are all great movies so you all should watch them over and over.

A fine film, Tammy and the Bachelor reveals that "B" films often give us more than their bigger, more glossy cousins. Notice what's good about Tammy and the Bachelor, and you will find that nearly everything about it is well-done. First, its script: almost fully visual, it develops three distinct, well-defined characters through set pieces in its first quarter hour, telling us everything we need to know about each -- including personal relationships, all of which are healthy though fully human. There's an absence of sinister intent, malice, self-loathing; Tammy has normal, natural human needs which she expresses with a degree of self-respect which would be disdained by a filmmaker today as naive. Setting is filmed beautifully, simply, naturally well-lit, visually interesting, full of the character which defines the personalities (Tammy the swamp child, Peter the affluent southern gentleman.) Acted superbly: there is no hamming, no larger-than-life glamor which would ring false. Withal, of course, there is little conflict in the film: only Tammy's adolescent coming-of-age in a modern world. But wait: what larger theme is there? All right -- this is not Scenes from a Marriage; Tammy cannot compete with Cabiria; the directing is not David Lean's, and the budget is not Cleopatra's. Reynolds is not Monroe and Nielsen is not Brando. But put them together with Walter Brennan and Fay Wray and a good script and a good cinematographer and the result is this film, which has its own light and sentimental rewards. And a great title song, one of the gems of 1950's screen musings.

Debbie Reynolds plays a country gal, Tammy, raised on a houseboat next to a river by her moonshinin' pa Walter Brennan. In an early scene, Tammy bemoans the fact that she's never seen her "complete self" in a mirror. Somehow she knows all the tricks to modern makeup however. As I was watching the film, I kept wondering how it would have played if they had actually cast somebody who looked or felt even remotely like a hillbilly. But this film exists in some kind of Pollyanna time warp, its down-home Americanisms pushing skinny Debbie Reynolds into the over-sized and outdated shoes of Mary Pickford where they are unsurprisingly uncomfortable. Leslie Nielsen's performance is a study in generic male appeal with no real personality. He's a male ingénue and not given much of any chance to do any of the interesting things we now know that he's capable of. The rest of the cast features some pleasing turns from veterans like Brennan and Fay Wray, but the whole enterprise is soaked in mawkish sentiment, a sort of worshipful attitude towards naiveté. Absolutely nothing unpredictable is allowed to happen, and there are few genuine laughs. The film's only redeeming quality, for those not already intoxicated with the talents of Debbie Reynolds, is the colorful set design and costumes which are captured faithfully and unimaginatively by Arthur Arling's photography. This is basically a movie for people who like TV. If you watched "Wonderful World of Disney" every Sunday night back in the 70s, then you might enjoy this completely vanilla film. The less said about the film's middle section, where Tammy and the rest of the members of the household dress up as Antebellum stereotypes -- including the maid in a red bandanna mammy outfit -- by the far the better. You might find yourself, like me, with your mouth agape that a film so bland and so deliberately inoffensive could actually be so vile. It's not as if the film-makers weren't aware of what they were doing and, "oh it was a different time" -- if that were the case, they would not have put that little scene where Tammy and the maid discuss how distasteful the whole thing is. Tammy could have said something about it and took a stand, but she's not really the heroine that all the characters in the movie make her out to be. She's just another movie naif who we're supposed to adore, for no particular reason except that she's Debbie Reynolds in pigtails.