Good News (DVD)

With boundless enthusiasm and enough jive to meld '20s flapper giddiness with '40s swing, 1947's Good News -- the feature directing debut of Charles Walters (Easter Parade, The Unsinkable Molly Brown) and screenwriting debut of Betty Comden and Adolph Green (Singin' in the Rain, The Band Wagon) -- is "one of the best of the lighthearted rah-rah collegiate musicals" (Pauline Kael, The New Yorker). Peter Lawford (as a campus football hero) and June Allyson (she's the brainiac who tutors him) lead a high-spirited cast that includes Mel Torme and Broadway's Joan McCracken. And The Varsity Drag and Best Song Oscar nominee Pass That Peace Pipe stand out among the numbers that are all zip and joy. And the bee's knees.