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| Director: Roy Del Ruth
Actors: Doris Day, Gordon Macrae, Jack Smith, Leon Ames, Rosemary Decamp
Studio: Warner Home Video
List Price: $19.98
Buy Used: $2.95
You Save: $17.03 (85%)
New (10) Used (27) Collectible (7) from $2.95
Rating:  27 reviews
Sales Rank: 3616
Format: Color, Hifi Sound, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: VHS Tape
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 95 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 4.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 6302728371
UPC: 085391239130
EAN: 9786302728378
ASIN: 6302728371
Theatrical Release Date: 1951
Release Date: July 8, 1994
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 27
 Doris plays a tomboy who turns into a lady. May 8, 2004
James McDonald (Lancaster, California)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Doris Day plays a teenage girl to parents Leon Ames and Rosemary DeCamp. Doris is pretty much a tomboy. She can lift furniture and play baseball. The father decided to move into this new big house to live in a more refined neighborhood so his daughter could meet someone to marry. Well, while playing baseball and then trying to keep her brother (Billy Gray, "Father Knows Best" tv series 1954-60) out of trouble with the new neighbor kid, she meets Gordon MacRae in the worst way, and even gets a spanking from him. This leads to her first time in an evening dress and afirst date. A nice , cordial romance begins.
Mary Wickes plays the house maid. Ellen Corby plays a school teacher.
Funniest line in the film: Billy gray says, "Everyone in town knows marjorie's old petticoat!"
Sequel: BY THE LIGHT OF THE SILVERY MOON (1953).
 Warm and Nostalgic March 30, 2005
Bobby Underwood (Bakersfield, California United States)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Traditional American values and warm nostalgia blend seamlessly in this WB film based on Booth Tarkington's Penrod stories. Starring a young Doris Day and Gordon MacRae and set in Indiana during WWI it is more a sweet story of love and family values scattered with songs than a traditional Hollywood musical. The sets of Indiana during the early 20th century are marvelous and a cast that includes Leon Ames, Jack Smith, Ellen Corby and Rosemary De Camp give Doris Day and Gordon MacRae all the fun and drama they need to fall in love.
Doris Day is the baseball playing tomboy, Margie, who meets William (MacRae) in the unlikliest manner when she takes a gun away from her mischievous little brother, Wesley, and almost shoots him in the process! Love blooms, of course, and soon she trades her cleats for high heels as she and William overcome her father's objections and the enlistment of William and his entire graduating class of Indiana U into the army.
Along the way we get snowball fights and the sweet angst of young and innocent love, not to mention some really nice songs. A few belly laughs are provided as Margie's little brother, Wesley, makes up a horrible story about his family based on a flicker he has seen to sidestep some homework that has the whole town talking!
Perhaps because this film so often gets compared to the perfect musical of American nostalgia, "Meet Me in St. Louis," it doesn't get the recognition it deserves. Doris Day shows that glowing magic that endeared her to audiences around the world and the film itself is a warm and wonderful reminder of America and its values. The end of this film will leave a warm feeling in your heart just as it did the public in 1949 and is a reminder of a more innocent time. A good film for the entire family.
 Great Movie April 2, 2001
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I've been looking for a copy of this movie for 2 years now. I'm so happy to learn it has a sequel! If you know a movie doesn't have to be disgusting to be funny and love zany romantic comedies and/or musicals, you'll enjoy "On Moonlight Bay". Sure, the ending is predictable, but there are plenty of surprises along the way. If you liked "Tammy and the Bachelor", you will like this movie equally well (if not more). It's my opinion that this movie is funnier and attracts a wider audience than "Tammy".
sunny, funny musical fable April 1, 2005
Byron Kolln (the corner where Broadway meets Hollywood)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
ON MOONLIGHT BAY is a charming period musical, perhaps Warner Brothers' answer to MGM's hugely-successful MEET ME IN ST LOUIS. It is based on Booth Tarkington's `Penrod' stories.
Marjorie Winfield (Doris Day) has just moved with her family to another part of town. She is a baseball-playing tomboy, but when she happens to run into handsome neighbour William Sherman (Gordon MacRae), her feminine instincts kick in and she trades her baseball and trousers for chiffon and perfume.
The rest of Marjorie's family includes her parents (Leon Ames and Rosemary DeCamp), precocious little brother Wesley (Billy Gray) and deadpan housekeeper Stella (Mary Wickes). It is a sunny, funny portrayal of a more innocent era, and thus charming viewing.
The entire movie is a complete joy. Doris Day and Gordon MacRae are perfect for the leads (they were also beautifully paired in Warners' TEA FOR TWO), and the film was such a success that a sequel was made reuniting all the main cast members - BY THE LIGHT OF THE SILVERY MOON.
Second only to Meet Me In St. Louis for musical nostalgia June 13, 2005
R. Christenson (Pine, CO USA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
If you liked Meet Me In Saint Louis and would like more of the same technicolor musical-comedy nostalgia mix, On Moonlight Bay is more of the same (as well as it's sequel, By The Light of the Silvery Moon). In fact, Doris Day's father in these films is played by Leon Ames, the quintessential turn-of-the-century middle-class American father, who also played Judy Garland's father in Meet Me In Saint Louis.
Day plays a teen-age girl, Marjorie Winfield, who's just at the age where she still wants to play baseball, but her father wants her to meet refined young men, who include Gordon MacRae (Oklahoma).
Doris Day displays her talents fully in this feature, both singing and acting, and acting while singing while eating an apple. But in my opinion the show is stolen by her daydreaming little brother Wesley Winfield, a character based on Penrod Schofield from the novels of Booth Tarkington, played very naturally by Billy Gray (later to portray Bud Anderson on Father Knows Best). Wesley get's into a series of misadventures comparable to Tom Sawyer, Dennis the Menace, even Bart Simpson. For instance, caught daydreaming about flying out of his chair at school, he talks his way out of punishment by telling his teacher, Ellen Corby (later to portray Grandma Walton), the plot of a film he'd seen as though it were real, accusing his father of drunkeness and abuse in the process. That's straigh out of Penrod, Chapters 7-10. Wesley get's a big pocket knife and sling shot for his birthday, and gets a chance to play with his neighbor's loaded gun; that's one thing you won't see in modern movies, let alone Doris Day's lovely singing.
Filling out the cast are Rosemary DeCamp (The Story Of Seabiscuit, The Treasure of Lost Canyon, 13 Ghosts) as Mrs. Winfield, and Mary Wickes (Father Dowling Mysteries) as the cook. Both Ellen Corby and Mary Wickes had some of the most distinguished careers as character actresses in movies and TV, both working regularly from the 1930s through the 1990s.
On Moonlight Bay's funny, romantic, entertaining and uplifting throughout; if you don't care for the nostalgia,it's still recommended for the music; and if you don't care for the circa 1917 songs, it's still recommended for the comedy.
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