‘Three Little Girls in Blue’ (1946)

You can’t keep a good bubble down. 20th Century Fox had made variations on this story as Three Blind Mice and Moon Over Miami when the plot was given a third go-round as Three Little Girls in Blue. The set-up: three sisters (June Haver, Vivian Blaine, Vera-Ellen) in the nostalgic setting of 1902 decide to blow their cash patrolling for rich husbands at Atlantic City, leading to various romantic entanglements amid gay, brightly colored songs.

As mindless as it is, this featherweight entertainment feels just about perfect. The songs, with lyrics by producer Mack Gordon, include “The Boardwalk at Atlantic City” and “You Make Me Feel So Young,” the latter used for a spectacular cotton-candy dream ballet of this era when everybody was wild for dream ballets. George Montgomery and Frank Latimore are the two main beaus, the latter dragging everyone to his Maryland mansion for a third act of fox hunts, mint juleps, and laughing black servants as we’re suddenly in another movie. Celeste Holm shows up then and steals the show as his wacky sister, who performs a wonderful song.

Now available on demand from Fox Cinema Archives, this somewhat worn, dark print feels like its Technicolor could use a sprucing. Otherwise, it’s pretty much a diabetic shock of airy pleasures.