1947 Comedy
From RKO
Directed by Irving Reis
Starring
Cary Grant
Myrna Loy
Shirley Temple
Rudy Vallee
Ray Collins
Harry Davenport
Johnny Sands
Veda Ann Borg
Don Beddoe
Lillian Randolph
I know there are those who consider this a screwball comedy and while I realize there are elements of that scattered about, they are few. If one wants a true screwball comedy, which also stars Grant, by the way, see Bringing Up Baby... there's none better. I would call this more of a situational comedy, a dialogue comedy... fewer laughs than screwball stuff... and excellent dialogue it is, too. It is, in fact that dialogue and a brilliant cast that brings this film alive.
Who couldn't find some giggles in a script where Temple plays a high schooler who's aching to be an adult, Grant is an adult who childishly can't stay away from mayhem and Loy is a no-nonsense judge who needs to embrace a little nonsense?
Not exactly on the periphery are intruding relatives, cranky relatives, wannabe boyfriends and assorted oddballs.
It starts with Grant and some of those oddballs facing Loy before her bench. She lets them all off with a warning and we can tell that the two saw or felt that spark.
The next day he is lecturing to a high school class about his work as an artist and Temple, in the audience, goes over the moon in her teenage lust. She meets him and insists on immediately interviewing him for the school paper. As it ends, she is sure she is in love.
Oh, have I mentioned that Temple and Loy are sisters (and Grant didn't know)? Well, improbable as that is, it's the case. Their characters are complete opposites but as you may have already gathered, each could stand to inherit a few of the others' traits. Loy is also Temple's legal guardian and they live together in Loy's spacious home.
Temple suggests to Grant that she model for him that night and while actual arrangements are left kind of fuzzy, Temple sneaks into his apartment while he is gone and promptly falls asleep. Just as Grant comes home and finds her, Loy and Vallee, her friend and assistant district attorney and sworn enemy of Grant's, come busting in. They take Grant to jail.
An agreement is made that in lieu of more jail time, Grant is to chastely date Temple in the hope that she'll tire of him. Her high school boyfriend, Sands, is not in on the arrangement and so is unhappy about his competition.
Scheduled is a town picnic and Grant appears at the Loy-Temple home as some sort of lunatic teenager. He engages the eager Temple and crotchety great uncle Davenport with the You remind me of a man routine. Catch it in the clip at the end.
The picnic has some comic highlights as Vallee tries to sabotage all of Grant's efforts in various races. I crack up not so much at the scenes themselves or even the dialogue but because here is the sophisticated Grant being anything but.
One of those wacko scenes comes in a nightclub when most of the cast comes strolling in one by one to join Grant and Loy at a large round table. With misunderstandings abounding, insults flying, feelings hurt, everyone gets mad at Grant and all leave in the same one-by-one fashion.
Collins plays Loy's and Temple's uncle, a psychiatrist, who not only has wanted Loy to marry for years but now to Grant in particular. He is convinced they are both right for one another and in love, even if it's not been acknowledged. He books them both on the same flight for some vacation spot while trying to keep Vallee from causing mayhem. There is a funny scene where Collins gets Vallee arrested.
The film ends as Loy and Grant spot one another as they are about to board the plan. She looks at a surprised Grant and says just what you think she's going to say.... you remind me of a man.
Have I waited too long to explain the term bobby-soxer to you or did you already know or do you not care? The Brits called the film Bachelor Knight because bobby-soxer was an American term not understood by the Brits. The look for teenage American girls was a popular fad in the 40s and refers to socks, or bobbysocks, that reached just above the ankle.
Reis directed just 18 movies and few of them were comedies. I thought his best work was the 1942 Lucille Ball-Henry Fonda drama The Big Sleep. He seemed a strange choice to helm this film but he was an RKO employee and did as he was told. And the fact that he was a contract director upset Grant before the actor ever set a foot on the lot.
Reis was young, frequently belligerent, and not happy with his contract status either. Grant wasn't easy to work with. His film sets were usually not too perky. Reis was in charge, of course, but Grant was the type to say do you know who you're dealing with? They argued about everything but especially issues which fall under the category of stage direction. At one point Grant was determined to have Reis fired and went to studio head Dore Schary who, in fact, took over direction of the film himself. Reis stewed at home for a few days and Grant took on a stony silence when he returned.
Grant wasn't having an easy go of it off screen either which made him more jittery and difficult to be around. His very special friend Howard Hughes was involved in that famous plane crash where he wreaked havoc on a Beverly Hills home. Additionally Grant was being interrogated by the FBI regarding some Hughes business dealings,
Loy fussed with Grant over his adlibs and little routines he would suddenly spring on her in the middle of a scene. It drove her crazy that he had to discuss every detail of every scene before it could be shot. This lady-like actress could be a tigress when Grant tried to steal a scene from her. She liked him but absented herself when he became the prima donna.
They had worked together before, in 1935, in the romantic mush, Wings in the Dark, and in 1948 would reunite for the final time in the very funny Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House.
Loy realized the drama on the set but said she got along with everyone... eventually. She originally had some issues with Temple's silly pranks but there was a deeper issue that concerned RKO. In the story Loy treats Temple strictly and says some funny but demanding things to her. The concern was that word-of-mouth over how darling Shirley Temple was treated (yes, even in character) could rile the public. There was a little rewriting to be done to capture the goal.
Both actresses were rabid on politics. Temple, of course, was Republican and Loy a Democrat but to their credit, they put those issues aside and actually became lifelong friends. Whenever they met, Temple would call Loy Sis.
Temple didn't enjoy making her young adult movies so much. I expect one issue was that she didn't receive the pampered treatment that she did in her 1930s flicks. On this movie, at 18, she was 10 months into her marriage to John Agar and it was a rocky affair caused mainly by his insecurity and drinking and her youth. The only thing worse than their first year of marriage was the second year, the third year and the fourth and fifth.
Temple did seem to cause her own problems on the set. In addition to the unwelcomed pranks she pulled on Loy, she had a major dustup with Grant. He had disappeared from the set for several days after another run in with Reis, While he was gone she had taken to doing imitations of him for the crew and they cracked up every time because she was so good. One day, right in the middle of her routine, Grant walked in and was not amused. He stalked off, went home and phoned in that if Temple wasn't fired he was quitting. Of course she wasn't fired and he didn't quit and the two became pals for the rest of the shoot.
She and veteran character actor Collins (you may remember him as Lt. Tragg on Perry Mason) were engaged in a belligerent scene when he kept forgetting his lines. In her frustration she blurted out maybe you're too old to still be acting and he called her a dirty little bitch. Shirley Temple! They got through the scene but did not become fast friends.
I think this was one of Collins's best movies. He was given some deliciously snarky lines. Vallee was not an actor or singer that I cared for but I had to admit that he was perfection to play a character no one particularly cared for.
Sands was a handsome, young, blond actor who only made 18 films before moving to Hawaii and becoming a real estate agent. This is arguably the best of his 18 films and he would make another one, Adventure in Baltimore, with Temple a year later.
Davenport played some of the crabbiest actors the movies ever saw and he was a delight. Character actors Borg and Beddoe have two scenes... in the courtroom and later the nightclub and both were key and they delivered the comic goods.
The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer would be nominated for one Oscar... and it won... for writing. Sidney Sheldon's novel Too Good to Be True was the basis for the film which he also adapted as a screenplay.
Critics were pleased and the public ate it up, mainly due to the draw of its three principal players.
Here's a scene:
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From the Sixties
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