There is enough charm in this little gem of a movie to keep you engaged. Two strangers, Joe (Robert Walker) and Alice (Judy Garland) meet at the Pennsylvania Station on a Sunday, quite innocently, over the broken-off heel of Alice's shoe and Joe's gallantry to see it repaired (he accidently tripped her). They then spend the lazy Sunday afternoon together visiting NYC landmarks. They decide to meet under the clock at the Astor Hotel lobby for a date later that evening. It is a typical date; they slip from small talk, to philosophical, to intimate- in carefully noted steps in the moonlight of the park, and then, they kiss. BAM! One of the BEST Screen kisses in movie history. They tie their bond with an shared experience coming to the aid of someone else--a milkman. Through a series of circumstances, Joe and Alice end up delivering the milkman's overnight orders for him--and he in turn invites them home for breakfast.
The milkman and his wife are the sage and crone who provide the catalyst for the rest of the film. At breakfast, the milkman, Al Henry (James Gleason) observes concerning whirlwind romances and resisting true love: Look Joe, If people thought about all the things that could happen, they'd never do anything.
After breakfast, in the subway station at rush hour Monday morning, another innocent incident tears Joe and Alice apart and they face the prospect of never knowing this wonderful person they just met!
Fortunately, this is a Hollywood movie and during wartime the prospect of what might have been is too horrible to accept, so they do find each other again. But that experience is enough for Joe and Alice. What follows is their quest; a battle against bureaucracies (ironically, it is the larger circumstancies of bureaucracies that allows them to meet at all) that lifts the couple to fight the systems that seem destined to keep them apart.
A great date movie from another time, with the accidental surprise of falling in love, and finding help from strangers when they least expect it as they are facing sudden obstacles to happiness. Beautifully acted and a fast paced --like their romance-- and, as the requirement of getting a nation to focus on moving forward, ever Hopeful.
Enjoy