Marjorie Morningstar
Marjorie Morgenstern is a student at Hunter College and the girlfriend of an eligible young man, Sandy Lamm, who attends her family's synagogue. Her parents are happy with her choice of mate, and her mother Rose Morgenstern (Claire Trevor) tells her father, Arnold (Everett Sloane), that she hopes the two kids marry.
Marjorie breaks up with the boy, though, and goes to the Adirondacks that summer to be a camp counselor. One night, Marjorie and friend Marsha Zelenko (Carolyn Jones) sneak to a Borscht Belt resort for adults called South Wind. There she is caught by resort owner Maxwell Greech (George Tobias), but social director Noel Airman (Gene Kelly) vouches for Marjorie as a guest and offers her a job, beginning a relationship with Airman and a friendship with aspiring playwright Wally Wronkin (Martin Milner), who writes Airman's stage act. The latter has a romantic interest in Marjorie, but she's tempted by the older, cynical Airman, who meets the disapproval of her parents. Airman, whose original name was the more Jewish Ehrman, renames Marjorie as well from Morgenstern to Morningstar.
Marjorie's sweet Uncle Samson (Ed Wynn) comes to the resort to keep an eye on her. But when he dies of a heart attack while entertaining guests, Marjorie goes back to the city. There she dates a doctor named Harris, with whom she quickly breaks up when Airman returns to find her. He declares that love has convinced him to become respectable. Marjorie tells her mother, who insists her daughter bring him to a Passover meal. "Not Passover, mother. He’s not very religious. He doesn’t believe in those things," Marjorie says. Rose answers, "He doesn’t believe in those things... you’re going to get married. How are you going to raise your children?"
In the midst of the Passover meal, he leaves and Marjorie follows him. She is concerned he's bored, but he says, "I wasn’t bored. I was disturbed, deeply. I couldn’t help thinking of all the things I’ve missed in life. Family, your kind of family. Faith, tradition. All the things I’ve been ridiculing all the time. That’s why I couldn’t take it anymore. I love you very much, Marjorie Morgenstern."
Airman gets a job at an advertising firm and seems to do well. But one week he doesn't show up to work and refuses to take Marjorie's calls. She goes to his apartment and finds him drunk with a strange woman, Imogene Norman. He has decided he cannot stand the professional lifestyle and wants to be an artist. The impetus to change careers is the success of Wally Wronkin on Broadway; the playwright has launched a series of hits and Airman is consumed with jealousy. Airman and Marjorie reconcile when girlfriend Marsha's new husband agrees to invest in his play. But it gets panned by critics. "We were crucified," someone explains to Marjorie, and their relationship is unable to survive. He runs away, again; she chases after him, even to Europe. In the end, Wally tells her Noel is back at the resort, where all first met.
Marjorie returns to South Wind, where she watches Noel rehearsing a new summer show. Everything is exactly the same as it was, her first summer there, except for herself. Greech observes that she's done some growing up. We see her board a bus. In the rearview mirror, Wronkin sits in back. He smiles, as he's been waiting for her to get over her summer fling. The suggestion is that they will embark on the relationship Wronkin had been hoping for from the beginning.
romantic