Wake Up and Dream (1946) Online

The cast is top-drawer, the songs are great and the color is brilliant in this war-time fable of a little girl searching for her brother, listed MIA during WWII. The predictable story is presented in interesting fashion, laced with some good songs, especially a rendition of "Off To See The Wizard." Also of interest is the performance by a very young John Ireland, in a non-action role. Never destined to be a classic, it is still good viewing for kids and adults.

Starts out with a sappy WW II romance between waitress June Haver and farmer John Payne. He's too shy and she's impatient. He's got a mopey kid sister (Connie Marshall) and then there's the town crank (Clem Bevans) who's been building a boat even though they are nowhere near water. Payne enlists and goes off to war.

When they get a letter saying Payne's missing in action, they (accidentally) set off on a boat journey to find him. Here's where the film tries to link to THE WIZARD OF OZ by playing the theme song over and over again. On the road, the trio runs into a failed dentist (John Ireland) who joins the quest. He becomes useful, especially when they finally find a river.

They get lost on the waterways and come upon a nutty recluse (the wizard?) but a navy plane spots the stranded boat and they are rescued ... just about the time Payne returns unharmed.

Nothing about the plot makes any sense at all. The main story about the boat is annoying because it's so stupid, and the analogies to the Oz story makes no sense either.

Haver comes off best but that's no great prize. Payne is hardly in the film. Ireland is good but his character is strange. Bevans is way too hammy, and Marshall seems to be channeling Margaret O'Brien as a weepy and nearly hysterical child. George Cleveland plays the recluse. Charlotte Greenwood is totally wasted as the landlady (she may be the wife) of the Bevans character. Other familiar faces include Charles D. Brown as the commander, Minerva Urecal as the gossip, Charles Russell as Coles, and Lee Patrick who seems to be the woman sitting on a stool.

The song "Give Me the Simple Life" is the only good thing to come out of this mess.

In case anyone is asking Wake Up And Dream is not a musical version of the Thirties Cole Porter review, nor is it a remake of the Universal film from the Thirties of the same title. This film is a whole other creature altogether and mainly known for introducing the song Give Me The Simple Life.

In fact the film starts out with John Payne singing Give Me The Simple Life to his little sister Connie Marshall. Payne's decided to enlist in the Navy and he does and then strangely disappears for most of the film until the end.

That's because he's reported missing in action and little Connie decides to use the good services of Clem Bevans who's built a sailing craft in his landlocked town and wants to offer to the U.S. Navy in time of war. And also to get away occasionally from his wife Charlotte Greenwood. Bevans and Marshall together with June Haver a server at the local diner all start out humoring the child's fantasy about finding her missing brother. Along the way they pick up a discharged seaman in John Ireland who joins their merry crew.

Wake Up And Dream is a strange film that quite frankly I didn't get most of the time. This one was strictly for the kid trade back in 1946.

Still it did introduce a very popular song, sung first by Payne and then by June Haver on the screen. But Darryl F. Zanuck frowned on his stars making records and the hit record in 1946 was done by Bing Crosby. The song perfectly fits his style. Back in the day Bing must have insisted to Jack Kapp at Decca records that he record Give Me The Simple Life which was written by Harry Ruby and Rube Bloom.

If you like the song and the stars than you should see Wake Up And Dream, otherwise you can sleep through it and not miss all that much.

On the surface, this is a rather strange screenplay, and many will probably dismiss it as frivolous. Think of it as a sort of fairytale or fable, and it will probably make more sense to you. In the beginning, it looks like it will be a conventional musical romance and, if you have no appreciation of fantasy, you may conclude this is the only sane segment of the film. The two leads: John Payne and June Haver, were talented singers as well as actors. The film begins with Payne singing the hit song composed for the film: "Give Me the Simple Life", while driving a horse-drawn buggy down a road(this being 1943). June would reprise this song later in the film. Meanwhile, while Payne was flirting with June in the small restaurant she worked in, as June sang, they danced to "I Wish I Could Tell You" Both were composed by the team of Rube Bloom and Harry Ruby.

Payne(as Jeff) wants to marry this knockout blond waitress Jenny(June). But, he's been a farmer all his life, and she doesn't want to live on a farm. So, he decides to enlist in the Navy, this being the middle of WWII. June kisses him goodbye on the train, and we don't see him again until near the end. His place is taken by 2 men, one being Clem Bevans: an eccentric old coot of a carpenter, who has been building a sloop in his backyard for years, hoping one day to sail it to exotic places, despite the fact there is no sizable lake or sea within 300 miles. Later, John Ireland, an unlicensed dentist, happens along and pulls the boat out of a hayfield, where it landed after a severe storm swept it down the nearby river, in a flood. June and Nella(Payne's little sister)were sleeping in the boat when the storm hit, having been evicted from their boarding house. Thus, they were along for the ride. Ireland, attracted by June, decides to sell his jeep for provisions and a spot on the boat.

Before they left, Nella received an official letter, saying Payne was missing in action. She was told if he got into trouble, she would find him on a special island. She imagined this land wasn't far away and that Bevans could navigate the boat to that island. Eventually, they got stuck in the mud in a jungly swamp. Nella ran off into the alligator-infested swamp, looking for Payne. Instead, she found a strange middle-aged man, whom she concluded must be Robinson Crusoe. He gave her a bag of peanuts. Ireland went with her back to visit this wizard of the swamp, while in the background, we hear "We're Off to See the Wizard", from "The Wizard of Oz". They find that he's not interested in the trappings of modern civilization. His main occupation is growing food for himself. He has developed some strange hybrids, such as a cucumber crossed with a peanut, as well as new versions of vegetables, such as cabbages and cauliflowers that grow in or under water. He's created things thought impossible.

Eventually, Payne returns from the navy, and is taken by the Coast Guard to find the boat and it's crew. They find the boat, but Nella has run off into the jungle again. Payne finds her unconscious, having fallen over a log. When she awakens, she's ecstatic that Payne is there, crediting his presence to the boat finding the right island. In the finale, there's no hint whether June will seek to settle down with either Payne or Ireland.

I have a reservation about the casting of Payne and Connie(Nella)as brother and sister. Payne was 34, although I suspect he was playing someone 10 years younger. Connie was 13, although she seemed to be playing a girl more like 9-11. There is no hint what happened to their parents. Thus, with their adjusted ages, it is possible they are brother and sister. June was 20, thus, a 24 y.o. Payne was about right for her.

There is confusion among reviewers over whether Charlotte Greenwood, as Sara, was Bevans' wife or landlady. Since she has a different last name, I will assume she was his landlady. But, why then would she sell his boat just before the storm? In the book this film is based upon, she is his wife and has the same last name! This film is based upon Robert Nathan's fanciful novel "The Enchanted Voyage". The character June plays is in the book, but not Payne's nor Connie's characters.

Bevans and 'The Swamp Wizard' have something in common: they dreamed the seemingly impossible and accomplished it, which is a good message, especially for children. I think the title adequately communicates this. Thus, this film would seem more relevant for children.

I was initially attracted to see this film because it included June Haver as a major character. She was a very beautiful and talented actress, especially for musicals, who never achieved the fame she was due.

There was a time when the short novels of Robert Nathan (not to be confused with the brilliant Broadway and film critic George Jean Nathan) were very popular with the public. It's not the case today. Most people recall his novels (if at all) for PORTRAIT OF JENNY, which was made (by David Selznick) into a memorable romantic film with Jennifer Jones, Ethel Barrymore, and Joseph Cotton. But most of them are forgotten and not read at all. THE ENCHANTED VOYAGE is one such novel. It is also the only one of his novels I ever read.

I was in junior high school at the time. The English textbook we were assigned to had four novels in it. We were supposed to read two of them (one was Jane Austen's PERSUASION). THE ENCHANTED VOYAGE was also included.

It was illustrated by photographs, which today I realize were stills from the movie version WAKE UP AND DREAM. I had, at that time, acquired a book about character actors entitled WHO IS THAT?, and it included (among the con-artist types) Clem Bevans. I recognized his face in the photos, and preceded to read the novel. It was not a boring novel, but I have read better ones.

Hector Peckett (Bevans) is a landlubber who has built a boat that is on wheels. He loves to dream of himself as a seaman - a ship captain. He is a henpecked husband, and uses the "boat" as an escape from his wife's "hectoring". During a heavy windy day the boat takes off when Hector puts down the sail. Like "Windwagon Smith" in the Walt Disney cartoon Hector's wheeled boat takes him down the east coast. He tries to mislead his wife as to his whereabouts with a postcard, which she carefully sees is not in the location he wrote on it's back as a message. Hector (who eventually picks up a fellow traveler - the John Payne character) is eventually found by his wife, who arrives to see his boat-wagon wrecked in his last attempt to retain his freedom. She takes him home in the end, showing a little more understanding to him and his needs, but the novel still seemed a trifle of a downer to me.

To be fair the movie was a trifle cheerier, oddly enough because it added some World War II propaganda strands. In retrospect these really did not make the story any better. In fact they date the story more today (a scene when Hector and his friends are given a banquet dinner, and fake telegrams from FDR and Churchill are read to them, one telegram signed "Uncle Joe Stalin" particularly grates. The film today can be considered well acted by Bevans and co-star Payne, but it is destinctly minor, except for introducing "Give Me The Simple Life."

Far and away, that's the most memorable song in this naïve and dated war-time fantasy, based on the novel "The Enchanted Voyage" by Robert Nathan, directed by Lloyd Bacon.

Since I'm a fan of 20th-Century Fox musicals of the Golden Age, I anticipated a great deal of lively, tuneful fun from "Wake Up and Dream", and I was disappointed by what I saw. A naïve, substandard children's fantasy, it mainly works as heavily sentimental reflection of its war-enshrouded time.

John Payne plays a farmer Jeff Cairn who, after he enlists in the Navy, disappears and is believed to be dead. Connie Marshall is his young sister Nella who is searching for him, along with a good-hearted old coot (Clem Bevans) in a boat called "Sara March".

June Haver, who deserved better than what she got, plays the saccharine waitress Jenny falling in love with Payne and goes along with the voyage, together with an eccentric dentist played by John Ireland.

The highlights are Payne's heartwarming rendition of "Give Me the Simple Life" at the beginning, and then later Haver, in a moment of sweet vulnerability, sings the song to show her love and adoration for Payne.

The Technicolor looks sumptuous, but the story is not that interesting. I suggest you skip it, unless you're interested in the stars or the subject.

"Wake Up and Dream" is not a film for everyone. This is because the plot is VERY schmaltzy and might make some cringe...while others will enjoy the movie. Don't say I didn't warn you!

The film begins with Jeff (John Payne) going off to war. He leaves his little sister behind (even though he had a deferment since he was her sole caretaker) and promises if he's lost, he'll be 'waiting on their island'...whatever that means. Well, soon he is missing in action and the young sister goes off on a hairbrained search for him. While this is hard to believe, adults agreeing to go with her on a boating trip from the Midwest does seem amazingly far-fetched! Does it get more difficult to believe? You betcha!

I enjoyed most of the film despite its heavy infusion of schmaltz. However, the ending really laid it on thick...too thick...to the point where it became a bit annoying and ridiculous. Decent acting but I just couldn't love this film despite all its good qualities.

Rather routine fanfare of a young girl in pursuit of her missing navy brother during World War 11.

John Payne and June Haver top the cast of this rather benign film. Where exactly is this young girl and group pursuing Payne? This is never fully explained and is ridiculous at best.

Charlotte Greenwood, a wonderful dancer and performer in general, is given so little to do as the wife of the old timer who makes the boat.

Of all people, John Ireland appears in a supporting role as a dentist without a degree who joins in the search. Naturally, he has romantic designs on Haver, who loves Payne. The film mercifully ends without this being dealt with. How fortunate for all concerned.