**SPOILERS** 15 year old Eizabeth Taylor plays the sickly and always catching colds flu's and pneumonia Cynthia Bishop in this coming of age film where, as far as I know, she gets her first film kiss by the most sought after boy is school Ricky Latham, Jimmy Lydon. It's Ricky who in fact ended up taking the gorgeous shy and always catching colds Cynthia to the high-school dance when she was left without a date due to her very sickly condition. With the boys in her school not wanting to catch,like a serious case of double pneumonia, anything off her.
You can see right away that Cynthia's illness was more in her mind then in her body with her quack of a doctor uncle Dr Fred Janning, Gene Lockhart, always giving her pills and shots to straighten her immune system which in fact was weakening it. Weakening it to the point where she spent more time in bed, for the first 15 years of her life, then out of it. Cynthia's parents Larry & Louise Bishop, George Murphy & Mary Astor, have been bled dry money-wise paying for her medical bills and it has caused them to to put their dreams on hold in leaving that hick town that they live in Napoleon Illinois for big city metropolis Chicago. The place to be and prosper as well as mix with a higher, and richer, class of people. All this silliness comes to a sudden end when Cynthia herself throws caution to the wind and risks her life to go out to the school dance, in a driving rain, and enjoy herself for the first time in her life! Which in fact turned out to be the best medicine for her as it turned her life around for the better. That after she came down with another bout, her last, of pneumonia that she recovered from without the help and snake oil-like treatment of Dr. Janning.
Elizabeth Taylor even at age 15 was drop dead gorgeous even though she played a girl who seemed to have, like in the movie "Love Story", a short time to live and never be able to reach her 21th birthday! In fact that was about the only negative thing in the film. It just showed that "Liz" no matter what role she played and how much makeup she had on her the studios just couldn't make her look bad, or sickly, no matter how hard they tried! Even in a part that call for it.
P.S Not only Cynthia got cured of her many illnesses but her parents as well. In them not wanting to leave Napoleon Ill and go on to bigger and better places like Chicago which with it's stressful living conditions, compared to the tranquil one's in little Napoleon, would have made life worse not better for the recovering Cynthia.
You can see right away that Cynthia's illness was more in her mind then in her body with her quack of a doctor uncle Dr Fred Janning, Gene Lockhart, always giving her pills and shots to straighten her immune system which in fact was weakening it. Weakening it to the point where she spent more time in bed, for the first 15 years of her life, then out of it. Cynthia's parents Larry & Louise Bishop, George Murphy & Mary Astor, have been bled dry money-wise paying for her medical bills and it has caused them to to put their dreams on hold in leaving that hick town that they live in Napoleon Illinois for big city metropolis Chicago. The place to be and prosper as well as mix with a higher, and richer, class of people. All this silliness comes to a sudden end when Cynthia herself throws caution to the wind and risks her life to go out to the school dance, in a driving rain, and enjoy herself for the first time in her life! Which in fact turned out to be the best medicine for her as it turned her life around for the better. That after she came down with another bout, her last, of pneumonia that she recovered from without the help and snake oil-like treatment of Dr. Janning.
Elizabeth Taylor even at age 15 was drop dead gorgeous even though she played a girl who seemed to have, like in the movie "Love Story", a short time to live and never be able to reach her 21th birthday! In fact that was about the only negative thing in the film. It just showed that "Liz" no matter what role she played and how much makeup she had on her the studios just couldn't make her look bad, or sickly, no matter how hard they tried! Even in a part that call for it.
P.S Not only Cynthia got cured of her many illnesses but her parents as well. In them not wanting to leave Napoleon Ill and go on to bigger and better places like Chicago which with it's stressful living conditions, compared to the tranquil one's in little Napoleon, would have made life worse not better for the recovering Cynthia.