Carousel (1956)

Plot:  15 years after his death, a carousel barker is granted permission to return to Earth for one day to make amends to his widow and daughter.
Stars: Gordon MacRae, Shirley Jones

Carousel is one of R&H's lesser known films, overshadowed by South Pacific and Oklahoma, mostly because its story is much darker and its best songs aren't as popular. That's too bad, because the plot and characters are much more interesting than Oklahoma or South pacific and its mercifully much shorter - just about 2 hours. Other pluses: we're spared any simple-simon lectures on "racism"  or corny R&H "humor".

As you'd expect, Jones is wonderful in the role, and MacRae (whose character dominates the film) does well - but its sad Sinatra passed up the role. Hardly an original opinion, I know.  If Sinatra had played "Billy" this would be counted among R&H's best films and much more popular. It does have flaws:  sometimes the characters lapse into "hick speak", which I suppose was a R&H lame attempt at "authenticity", the scenes in Heaven go on too long, and there's another deadly boring "ballet".  Some good songs:  "June is busting out all over" and "You'll never walk alone" "My Boy Bill".

Summary:  The darkest of the R&H films, and one of their better ones. I'd rate it below Sound of Music, The King and I and State Fair (1945).