This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

"She'll write like any other American girl, when she needs money." That's what happens when Sandra Dee heads off to college, ending father James Stewart's homebound headaches but adding new ones. It's too soon for him to learn that silence is deafening as he still has one daughter at home, as well as a straight talking wife (Audrey Meadows), maybe no longer a Honeymooner, but still gifted with that delightful raspy voice that could crack ice. If having been approached for autographs by kids who think that he was the star of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" isn't enough, he has to hear wife quote "Que Sera Sera" from "The Man Who Knew too Much". But those un-plot related references to other Jimmy Stewart movies are forced laughs, while the real plot line has him recounting his story to the executives and board of his employers, deciding whether or not to ask for his resignation or fire him.An often eye rolling farce tests trying too hard to be "hip", this uses Stewart's hearing at his job and phone calls to explain what's going on in the story. If this reveals anything, it's the ridiculousness of some college aged kids obsession with social issues (often doing it simply to be involved with the crowd, not even understanding the whole issue), and getting involved with the "wrong" crowd. Stewart, getting involved in trying to talk some sense into his daughter, keeps getting into hot water thanks to his dizzy daughter. Bob Denver adds a few minor chuckles as a beatnik college student, while John McGiver plays the stereotypical staid stick in the mud businessman. One thing the script does get right in this unbelievable version of a forgotten Broadway hit is the description of Dee as "Cuckoo, the Bird Girl", unintentionally getting pop into trouble, but he's no rocket scientist either. There have been much better films (comic and dramatic) about the generation gap, here proving that the gap is located between both generation's ears. The film is too episodic to really grab the viewer completely, stuck in its decade and locked on its reels with superglue. Poor Meadows is sadly wasted as the stereotypical mom, no different than Joan Bennett was in "Father of the Bride", window dressing only. Unlike the quietly ignored Spencer Tracy in that film, though, Stewart keeps making a fool out of himself, perhaps a good reason as to why pop always pays but never gets involved. Pretty photography in exotic settings doesn't hide the film's mediocrity, complete with some truly stinky songs, including one about Paris that I hope to never hear again, especially as sung by the tone deaf Ms. Dee.

Featherweight comedy starring James Stewart as a harried dad who goes to Paris to bring back coed daughter Sandra Dee after she's fallen for a Frenchman. That's it. Stewart tries mightily as he gets into one embarrassing (albiet harmless) predicament after another while taking kooky advice from loony Brit Robert Morley. Morley gets most of the film's laughs. Director Henry Koster keeps things at a mostly sitcom level and though at least some this was presumably filmed on location, it's mostly studio bound, high gloss stuff. There is a colorful supporting cast including Irene Tsu, Audrey Meadows and, briefly, Bob Denver and top notch cinematography by Lucien Ballard. Based on a play that somehow ran for a year on Broadway.

It's been commented on by many critics that James Stewart has been the actor most partnered with top directors. His films with Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, and Frank Capra have been studied over and over again. But it would surprise many to learn that after the eight he did with Anthony Mann, the second place finisher is Henry Koster with five films with James Stewart.The five films are Harvey, No Highway, Mr. Hobbs Goes On a Vacation, Dear Brigitte and Take Her She's Mine. And then they further subdivide as Stewart plays three types of character. He's the absent minded professor in No Highway and Dear Brigitte and the harassed father of girls in Mr. Hobbs and Take Her She's Mine. Both of which he plays to perfection. And of course there is Harvey in a class all by itself.Father is the last to know that his daughter has grown up to be a "dish." But that is in fact what Sandra Dee has done. Apparently just hanging around has put all the boys' hormones into an exponential overdrive. Poor Stewart is walking innocently into all kinds of grief trying to protect Dee's virtue. The California based Stewart's concern has taken him to New England and then to Paris.Some pretty funny things happen to poor Jimmy. But I think you'll like best the way his costume falls apart on a chartered boat in the Seine due to some bad advice that he gets from a fellow hotel guest Robert Morley. Still cracks me up 43 years after first seeing it.Audrey Meadows plays the patient wife and mother to Stewart and Dee borrowing a little from Alice Kramden. And I think today's audience will appreciate seeing Bob Denver essentially reprising his role as a Maynard G. Krebs type beatnik. Look for James Brolin in a tiny role as one of the hormonally charged college kids.Koster and Stewart work well together. Maybe at some point his partnership with Stewart will get some study as well.

Once again Stewart was the unlucky husband and father (this time an attorney) who must keep fun-loving, adventurous daughter Dee out of trouble… In college, the intrepid miss gets herself into the Bohemian lifestyle… When Stewart visits to check up on her, he ends up in trouble with the police himself, with the consequent embarrassment of unwanted publicity… Having been dismissed from college, Dee flies to Paris, where her father tracks her again… Dee has taken up with avant-garde painter Phillippe Forquet, who is as eccentric as he is handsome…Stewart winds up in a bizarre-looking costume at a bohemian ball, falls into the Seine, and gets arrested by the French police… Finally, a promise of relative stability is presaged when Dee and Forquet head to the altar… Back home (and greatly relieved to be there), Stewart realizes that his middle-aged domesticity with Anne (Audrey Meadows) will be short-lived… Their second daughter has reached an age to rival, and possibly surpass her older sister's tendency for unpredictable mischief-making…Meadows was just the woman to complement Stewart's hi-jinks… Morley and McGiver enriched the elements