Bring Your Smile Along (1955) is a light-hearted musical comedy that marked the feature film directing debut of Blake Edwards. The story, co-written by Edwards and his professional mentor Richard Quine, concerns Nancy (Constance Towers in her first film role), a music teacher at a small New England college who decides to try her luck in New York as a songwriter. In New York she teams up with musician Martin Adams (Keefe Brasselle) and together they form a successful partnership writing songs for singer Jerry Dennis (Frankie Laine). Nancy and Martin are attracted to each other, but Nancy has a fiancé back home, David (William Leslie). When David visits her in New York, Nancy must decide if she will stay in the Big Apple and live her dream or return home to her old life with David.

Frankie Laine was already a top recording star when he appeared in Bring Your Smile Along, his third feature film and the first of two for director Blake Edwards; he would follow this with Edwards' musical-comedy He Laughed Last (1956). After that, he didn't pursue any more feature length roles, preferring to concentrate on his recording career and occasional television and movie appearances in cameo parts. His powerful, dramatic voice, however, was often used for movie themes for Westerns, and his stirring vocal performances on Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) and 3:10 to Yuma (1957) are iconic and still popular today.

If nothing else, Bring Your Smile Along is a lighthearted and rarely shown B-picture that fans of Blake Edwards will enjoy seeing as an example from his early career. The film also features several songs including "If Spring Never Comes", "Don't Blame Me", "Every Baby Needs a Da-Da-Daddy" and the title song sung by Frankie Laine.

Producer: Jonie Taps
Director: Blake Edwards
Screenplay: Blake Edwards, Richard Quine
Cinematography: Charles Lawton Jr.
Film Editing: Al Clark
Cast: Frankie Laine (Jerry Dennis), Keefe Brasselle (Martin 'Marty' Adams), Constance Towers (Nancy Willows), Lucy Marlow (Marge Stevenson), William Leslie (David Parker), Mario Siletti (Ricardo), Ruth Warren (Mrs. Klein, Landlady), Jack Albertson (Mr. Jenson).
BW-83m.

by Andrea Passafiume