The respectable lives of English literature lecturer Thornton Sayre and his daughter Carol are disrupted when it is revealed that Thornton was once the matinee idol Bruce Blair, who played El Toro (based on Zorro) and other romantic figures, and was widely known as the "Dreamboat". His films are now being broadcast on a television show hosted by his former costar Gloria Marlowe.
Thornton's daughter Carol is belittled by fellow students following the revelation. Her father affirms that he was a teacher before he was an actor.
The college administration committee ask for his resignation, but president Mathilda May Coffey requests power to decide how to proceed. In private, she admits to Thornton that she had been one of his biggest fans, and attempts unsuccessfully to seduce him.
Thornton and Carol hastily leave for New York to seek an injunction against the show. There they meet Sam Levitt, the man responsible for airing the movies. While Sam and Gloria try to convince Thornton to change his mind, Sam has underling Bill Ainslee show Carol the city.
Thornton eventually procures his injunction, but he is fired after spurning Coffey's advances. Meanwhile, Bill and Carol have fallen in love and are planning to marry.
When Gloria gloats over Thornton's setbacks, he reveals that a major movie studio is interested in reviving his film career. Months later, Bill and Carol attend Thornton's premiere in Sitting Pretty - a real film that starred Clifton Webb. Gloria then reveals to Thornton that she has bought his contract and is now his boss.
Cast
Clifton Webb as Thornton Sayre / "Dreamboat" / Bruce Blair
In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther wrote: "Hollywood's low opinion of TV is once more revealed with blithely superior derision and a lordly splurge of burlesque ... [T]he fastest and most hilarious sport in the film is that generated in the travesties of old silent movies that are shown. ... These are the most inventive and satiric bits in the film." Crowther praised "the serene and eloquent Clifton Webb" as "deliciously consistent when dishing out cutting remarks or betraying the slightest traces of middle-aged vanity[.]"[3]
References
^Aubrey Solomon, Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History, Scarecrow Press, 1989 p224
^'Top Box-Office Hits of 1952', Variety, January 7, 1953
^Crowther, Bosley (1952-07-26). "The Screen in Review". The New York Times. p. 9.
