My Sister Eileen

Two spirited Ohio girls, plain, forbearing Ruth (Garrett) and blonde, head-turning Eileen (Leigh), take a 30-day let on a Greenwich Village basement, determined to make their mark on Manhattan. Good-looking wide-screen musical (from the play by Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov, in turn an adaptation of short stories by Ruth McKenney - interestingly, not to say confusingly, the Leonard Bernstein stage musical Wonderful Town had the same provenance), with Bob Fosse as the unprepossessing soda jerk who wins Eileen against the opposition of a shipload of Brazilian naval cadets, and Jack Lemmon, as the magazine editor, an old-school sexual predator (essentially idiotic), who finally recognises Ruth for what she is, a real writer and a real stunner. Funny, innocent and light on its toes.