It Happened to Jane
Doris Day was nearing her popular zenith, and Jack Lemmon just hitting his stride, when they teamed up forIt Happened to Jane, a small-town comedy in the Capra vein. Doris is a widowed mom whose Maine lobster business is snarled by railroad tycoon Ernie Kovacs (hiding behind a skullcap and a huge cigar), the "meanest man in America." Her lawsuit against him, aided by lawyer-suitor Lemmon, gains national headlines. This is a curious movie:  crucial scenes seem to have been left unwritten, while sequences involving Cub Scouts and an oddly impassioned Town Hall Meeting go on endlessly. Director Richard Quine was making some fun movies around this time (Bell, Book, and Candle), but the fizz is only intermittent here, mostly provided by Lemmon's jack-in-the-box youthfulness. Doris sings a couple of tunes and brings her downhome tomboy routine to New York City, where the movie employs some of the quaint TV personalities of the day.--Robert Horton