"Just Across the Street" is worth seeking out--an pleasing example of the kind of modest comedy (often placed on lower-half of a double bill) that Hollywood stopped making almost a half-century ago. It's brisk, powered by a clever mistaken-identity romantic plot, and filled with entertaining comic performances by old-time pros like Cecil Kellaway, Natalie Schaefer and Billie Bird. Nobody handles this kind of light farce better than Ann Sheridan. Although this came rather late in her career, she shines as the no-nonsense female lead, caught up in a situation that spins out of her control. She is well-matched by John Lund, one of the best light-comedy performers. They make a strong romantic and comedic team. The film is directed with a surprisingly light touch by U-I studio standby Joseph Pevney. Though certainly small-scale and lightweight, it has an appealing, non-condescending small-town America feeling--plus, it's just funny.
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dallesmac5 May 2007
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JohnHowardReid15 September 2017Associate producer: Ross Hunter. Producer: Leonard Goldstein. Copyright by Universal Pictures Co. Inc. on 6 May 1952. New York opening at the Palace: 27 June 1952, where it ran a week as the movie you came late for that preceded the vaudeville program. U.S. release: June 1952. U.K. release (as an "A" feature through G-F-D): 30 June 1952. Australian release: 14 November 1952. 7,060 feet. 79 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: A plumber's secretary poses as the daughter of a prominent society couple.
COMMENT: It's hard to find much to praise in this uninteresting and thoroughly unconvincing little "comedy", which revolves around one of the thinnest and least likely plot premises we have ever encountered.
In the hands of an Ernst Lubitsch (with Gary Cooper as the plumber, Marlene Dietrich as the working girl, Eugene Palette as the industrialist) a very light soufflé may have been fashioned, but in the heavy-handed fist of Joseph Pevney (despite some commendable attempts at fluid camera-work and the right kind of background music occasionally) it comes across with all the zing of a wet blanket.
It's sad to find Ann Sheridan, Cecil Kellaway and Alan Mowbray (in a small role as a butler) enmeshed in this half-baked wad of dough. Miss Sheridan's costumes are unattractively dowdy, though the camera-work is bright and production values look moderately expensive. But with a nothing script, the film was probably just rolled off the production line.
One wonders how producer, Ross Hunter, a man with both taste and ability, managed to get himself involved in this quagmire.