Irving Berlin's music highlights this musical classic, which covers 20 years in the lives of the Donahue family. Molly and Terrence Donahue (Ethel Merman and Dan Dailey) are a show-biz couple who spawn two show-biz kids, Tim and Katy (Donald O'Connor and Mitzi Gaynor), as well as Steve Donahue (Johnnie Ray), who leaves the family business to become a priest. The family is rocked, however, when Father Steve returns to the family bosom to perform in a benefit concert. Things go further awry when Tim has the misfortune of falling for career- obsessed, social-climbing chorus girl Vicki (Marilyn Monroe). The film's screenplay was written by Phoebe and Henry Ephron; all four of the Ephrons' daughters became writers like their parents, including their eldest, writer/director Nora Ephron.