My Sister Eileen (1955)

Sisters Eileen and Ruth Sherwood move to New York City from rural Ohio to chase their dreams: Pretty but naive Eileen (Janet Leigh) wants to be an actress and a model while older, less-gorgeous-but-more-practical sister Ruth (Betty Garrett) aspires to be a writer.

They rent a scuzzy basement apartment in Barrow Street, Greenwich Village, and run into several odd and colourful neighbourhood characters (including future Bewitched star Dick York). Kurt Kasznar plays their Greek landlord, Papa Appopolous.

Bob Baker (Jack Lemmon) is the playboy magazine editor who Ruth hopes to impress – and eventually falls for. Lemmon is charming and even sings a song, but dancers Bob Fosse and Tommy Rail steal the show with their amazing choreography.

My Sister Eileen had originally appeared as a series of short stories in the New Yorker before it was adapted into a play (1940), a comedy movie (1942) and a hit Broadway musical, retitled Wonderful Town (1953), with songs by Leonard Bernstein.

Columbia owned the movie musical rights to Eileen but when Bernstein wanted too much money for his score for Wonderful Town, the studio passed on adapting the Broadway hit and created its own musical film adaptation instead. Blake Edwards co-wrote the screenplay.

Eileen Sherwood
Janet Leigh
Bob Baker
Jack Lemmon
Ruth Sherwood
Betty Garrett
Frank Lippincott 
Bob Fosse
‘Papa’ Appopolous
Kurt Kasznar
Ted ‘Wreck’ Loomis
Dick York
Helen
Lucy Marlow
Chick
Tommy Rall
Helen’s Mother
Barbara Brown
Police Officer Lonigan
Horace McMahon

Director
Richard Quine

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