In Song of the Open Road, fourteen year old Portland radio star Suzanne Burce (yes, that’s spelled correctly) makes her screen debut playing an overbooked and socially isolated child star who runs away from Hollywood because she wants to pick crops with other teenagers, who, as members of the U. S. Crop Corps, are bicycling from grove to grove, sleeping in well appointed American Youth Hostels, eating three square meals a day, and and who recuperate each night from a hard day’s work in the orchards by listening to each other play Bach. Yes, some people have no shame. The adults managing Suzanne Burce had stardom in mind, so their fledgling hitmistress was introduced to the American public as Jane Powell, playing a phenomenally musically talented little girl named….Jane Powell.
Song of the Open Road has attained more notoriety as W. C. FIeld’s last film than as Jane Powell’s first. It is a lost film. I have seen it, but that’s just because Mike’s Movie Madness happens to be so awesome.
I hereby claim Song of the Open Road as an Oregon film, based on the contribution of the leading lady, Jane Powell.
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