I’ll See You in My Dreams (1951)

(On Cable TV, March 2021) Songwriter biographies were a staple of Hollywood from the 1930s to the 1950s, and I’ll See You in My Dreams, about Gus Kahn, fits the profile of most of them — cleaning up the ethnic origins of its subject, playing up his struggles against alcoholism, streamlining the romance with his wife. Doris Day stars alongside Danny Thomas, and while I haven’t seen all of Day’s films so far, this strikes me as one of the most conventional musicals in her career: the tone is very much in-line with the Golden Age of musicals, with explicit musical numbers (most of them sung by her) punctuating the biographical scenes (of him). Audiences in the 2020s won’t have the same attachment as 1950s audiences did to the songs sung here, although “Makin’ Whoopee” still has some cultural currency (in my case, thanks to a Newsradio parody of a scene from The Fabulous Baker Boys). There’s not much of a criticism to offer about I’ll See You in My Dreams but neither is there all that much praise: it’s an average example of its subgenre, perhaps most noteworthy for featuring Day having plenty of occasions to showcase her singing talents.