Wonderful Movie

Excellent but underrated film

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Debbie Reynolds elected to town Sheriff?! That does not compute! There's no way she could have ever handled the job. In fact it just made me root for the outlaws and even cheer as robbed the town captured the new Sheriff and ride off with her. Any Western town that would elect Debbie as Sheriff deserves to be taken over by outlaws!

Copyright 1 November 1961 by Cummings-Harman Productions. Released through 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening at the Paramount: 22 December 1961. U.S. release: 26 October 1961. U.K. release: 4 February 1962. 8,880 feet. 99 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Charleyville is a typical pioneer town at the turn of the century, peppered with outlaws, saloon-thugs and gamblers who make life tough for the ranch folk. Broke and friendless, Debbie takes a job as ranch-hand with Aggie Gates (Thelma Ritter), aiming to collect enough money to send for the two youngsters she has left in New York with her mother-in-law. Saloon-keeper Dan Jones (Steve Forrest) and his dance-hall sweetheart (Juliet Prowse) are an immediate threat to Debbie's security, as is Sheriff Yoss (Ken Scott) whose loose government Debbie attacks at once and sets out to fight to a showdown. Befriending Debbie in a series of adventures through which she learns to slug her way with the best of them, is neighboring rancher Pat Collins (Andy Griffith).NOTES: The novel by Richard Emery Roberts entitled "Star in the West" was first published in 1951. To coincide with the movie release, Pocketbooks launched an initial printing of 500,000 copies. As the movie chalked up no great returns at the box-office, I wonder how many copies were pulped? COMMENT: Far-fetched and not to be taken too seriously, "The Second Time Around" is a pleasant and amusingly unassuming little film with some most agreeable characterizations. Miss Reynolds herself leads the pack, but she is more than ably supported by Steve Forrest (of all people), Andy Griffith, Ken Scott (another surprise, he's absolutely top-notch as a crooked sheriff) and Tom Greenway (a Lon Chaney Jr. imitator in the small part of the deputy sheriff).These character sketches are well handled by director Vincent Sherman (here making his final Hollywood movie). True, Sherman has significantly less success with Tracy Stratford and Jimmy Garrett, two typically American movie brats who are fortunately left behind in New York.OTHER VIEWS: Miss Reynolds is a natural at this sort of thing. She really flings herself into this part. It's her show... Except for one brief, snappy Flamenco, all Juliet Prowse has to do is kind of hover in the background. She hovers well. — Variety.

Although not a note of the song is sung, The Second Time Around gets its title from the song Bing Crosby introduced in High Time the year before this film came out. However Frank Sinatra scored the big hit on that song and the melody is heard throughout the film.It's a cute film, but sadly not cute enough for me. Debbie Reynolds a recent widow comes out to Charleyville, Arizona to get a job in a mercantile when she finds the owner being shipped out in a pine box. He was a friend to her late husband and now she's stranded in Charleyville in 1911 on the eve of Arizona becoming a state. Thelma Ritter gives her a job on her small ranch and pretty soon gambler Steve Forrest and neighboring rancher Andy Griffith are panting after Debbie. But Debbie who is disgusted by the lack of law and order in the town gets the sheriff recalled and gets his job.A great blow for women's rights, but so help me I couldn't wrap my mind around the concept that Debbie who was such a tenderfoot when she came out west is now handling a six gun like a gunfighter. It was really a bit much. Debbie and Thelma Ritter worked well together and they would do so again in the much better How The West Was Won. Juliet Prowse has a nice part as Steve Forrest's saloon dancer girlfriend who is remarkably tolerant of her new rival.I don't think The Second Time Around is first rate for Debbie Reynolds and the rest of the cast.

Film buffs love to say Debbie Reynolds is 'underrated' as an actress--but most of her fluffy output from the 1960s look suspiciously like Doris Day cast-offs. Finally, in "The Second Time Around", she gets a sparkling comedy, a disarming concoction with Reynolds in good form as a widowed mother of two who relocates to Arizona in search of work and ends up the new mayor of a tumbleweed town. Sharp script, colorful supporting work from Andy Griffith, Thelma Ritter, Juliet Prowse and the reliable Steve Forrest, and a fine sense of atmosphere and nuance makes this one of Debbie's best comic vehicles. *** from ****