Expensive and all-star and in production for most of 1950 and 51, this MGM anthology reflects what patriotism looked like in the Cold War era, and uncertainly jumbled together comic and dramatic episodes. A couple just pass muster: There's one where Ethel Barrymore is a sad Boston matron dismayed to learn she hasn't been counted in the census, and in another, Marjorie Main is excellent as a grieving mother visited by her dead son's war buddy. Most of the stories just aren't interesting, and there's some amazing miscasting: Gene Kelly as a Greek entrepreneur making goo-goo eyes at Janet Leigh (and S.Z. Sakall rattling his cheeks as her father), Fredric March (in a rare bad performance) as a stupid Italian immigrant arguing with schoolteacher Nancy Davis over whether his son should have eyeglasses, Gary Cooper over-drawling as a Texan mis-explaining the Lone Star State. There's a welcome but perfunctory documentary about great African Americans, and William Powell is elegant in the opening segment. There's also a lot of narration, and if I'm not mistaken, it's Louis Calhern. It was understandable that MGM wanted to celebrate America in the early '50s, but couldn't they have come up with some better plots?
