The Affairs of Dobie Gillis is a 1953 American comedy musical film directed by Don Weis. The film is based on the short stories by Max Shulman collected as The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (also the title of the later TV series). Bobby Van played Gillis in this musical version, co-starring with Debbie Reynolds and Bob Fosse.
The movie was filmed in black and white, MGM's first non-color musical film in years. It was Fosse's technical screen debut, as it was his second film but the first to be released.
Plot[]
At Grainbelt University, a Midwestern university, freshmen Dobie Gillis (Bobby Van) and Charlie Trask (Bob Fosse) court students Pansy Hammer (Debbie Reynolds) and Lorna Ellingboe (Barbara Ruick). They attend the same courses because Lorna is pursuing Dobie, who is pursuing Pansy, and Charlie is pursuing Lorna. Pansy is studious, and is encouraged by her father George (Hanley Stafford) to "learn learn learn" and "work work work," while Dobie, Charlie and Lorna only want to have fun.
Pansy's father can't stand Dobie and does everything in his power to keep them apart. Dobie and Pansy manage to blow up the chemistry lab, but Dobie is spared expulsion because the officious English professor Pomfritt (Hans Conried) is misled to believe that the feckless Gillis is a literary genius.
Pansy is sent to a school in New York after the chemistry lab incident. With the help of Charlie and Lorna, Dobie figures out a way of getting Pansy back to Grainbelt.
Cast[]
- Bobby Van as Dobie Gillis, a freshman
- Debbie Reynolds as Pansy Hammer
- Bob Fosse as Charlie Trask, a freshman
- Barbara Ruick as Lorna
- Hans Conried as Prof. Pomfritt
- Hanley Stafford as George Hammer, Pansy's father
- Lurene Tuttle as Mrs. Eleanor Hammer
- Charles Lane as Chemistry Professor Obispo
- Archer MacDonald as Harry Dorcas
- Kathleen Freeman as 'Happy Stella' Kowalski
- Almira Sessions as Aunt Naomi
- Charles Halton as Dean (Granbelt University)