Arguably Quine’s most delightful film, My Sister Eileen is a musical scored by Jule Styne and Leo Robin and based on the same source material as Comden and Green’s irresistible Broadway show Wonderful Town. The film follows two sisters from Ohio newly transplanted to Greenwich Village and struggling to find work and love in the big city. As so often in Quine’s work, story is secondary to mood and character. The first film for which Bob Fosse received screen credit as a choreographer, My Sister Eileen is also perhaps the film in which Fosse appears onscreen for the greatest amount of time. A welcome alternative to the somewhat more formal MGM musicals of the period, My Sister Eileen possesses a charm and intimacy of scale that remains as appealing today as it was at its first release.
