By the Light of the Silvery Moon is a 1953 American musical film directed by David Butler and starring Doris Day and Gordon MacRae. As with the film's predecessor On Moonlight Bay, the film is based loosely on the Penrod stories by Booth Tarkington.
Plot
The Winfield family lives in small-town Indiana as daughter Marjorie's boyfriend William Sherman returns from military duty in World War I. Their unstable romance provides the backdrop for other family crises, caused mainly by son Wesley's wild imagination.
Cast
Doris Day as Marjorie Winfield
Gordon MacRae as William 'Bill' Sherman
Billy Gray as Wesley Winfield
Leon Ames as George Winfield
Rosemary DeCamp as Alice Winfield
Mary Wickes as Stella
Russell Arms as Chester Finley
Maria Palmer as Renee LaRue
Howard Wendell as John H. Harris
Walter Flannery as Ronald 'PeeWee' Harris
Music
"By the Light of the Silvery Moon" “Your Eyes Have Told Me So” “Just One Girl” “Ain’t We Got Fun” “If You Were the Only Girl” “Be My Little Baby Bumble Bee” “I’ll Forget You” “King Chanticleer”
Reception
In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther wrote: "Despite the obviousness of the humor and the conventionality of the small-town tone—achieved and directed by David Butler as though he were reading from a prop department catalogue—the singing of several old song hits by Miss Day and Mr. MacRae is agreeably melodious. (We won't mention the anachronism of the songs.) ... As usual, the two young people have that musical comedy sparkle and splash that is utterly artificial but consistent with the sort of work they do. On one point, however, we will quibble: that is, when someone says, "Would you care to go to the nickelodeon with me?" In 1919? Warner Brothers, for shame!"