Our Town

All Over Town (1949) is one of those cozy little comedies with no real conflict and no real jokes. It takes place in a little seaside town in England, right after the war. The town's all a-twitter that the star reporter for their little newspaper, Norman Wooland, is back from the war. He looks forward to settling down to writing inconsequential little articles about garden parties, with occasional burst of truth-to-power blasts against boring amateur musicals. The woman reporter who had been standing in for him, Sarah Churchill (Royal Wedding) would rather be off to a Big City (Bristol? Torquay?), but Wooland just loves the small town life.

Of course, they eventually uncover (minor) corruption and impropriety and must fight the comfortable interests, even with their press breaking down and the loss of sponsors, plus young love and an oddly touching side plot about a drunk young woman who turns out to be a demobbed soldier with a touch of PTSD.

And it all ends happily, and there will always be an England. I can't say I didn't enjoy this, but it was pretty insubstantial. Some nice little character turns, a few stock situations. But this isn't what I'd recommend to anyone, unless you really want to watch something like this, and you've seen Genevieve.