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SANTA BARBARIANS

You’ve probably already heard from Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Powell, because despite Paul Rosenfield’s claim that none of those 1940s movies about idealized small towns was set in Santa Barbara, MGM’s “A Date With Judy” (1948) most certainly was . In fact, the opening minutes of the film are devoted to depicting Santa Barbara as exactly the kind of community that, in Rosenfield’s own words, “shaped and defined the American family.”

KATHY EASTERLING

Los Angeles

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