Hot Picks
|
|
|
The Major and the Minor
USA 1942
produced by Arthur Hornblow jr for Paramount
directed by Billy Wilder
starring Ginger Rogers, Ray Milland, Rita Johnson, Robert Benchley, Diana Lynn, Edward Fielding, Frankie Thomas, Raymond Roe, Charles Smith, Larry Nunn, Billy Dawson, Lela E. Rogers, Aldrich Bowker, Boyd Irwin, Byron Shores, Richard Fiske, Norma Varden, Gretl Dupont
screenplay by Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, based on a play by Edward Childs Carpenter and a story by Fanny Kilbourne, music by Robert Emmett Dolan
review by Mike Haberfelner
|
|
Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
|
|
|
|
|
Fed up of not getting anywhere in New York professionally, Susan
(Ginger Rogers) decides to skip town and return to her mother's (Lela E.
Rogers) somewhere in rural Iowa - only to realise at the train station she
hasn't even got enough money for the ticket home. So she dresses up as a
12 year old girl to get reduced fare - but on the train the conductors get
wise of her all to quickly, so she hides away in what she thinks is an
empty compartment ... only to find out it's occupied by Major Kirby (Ray
Milland), a good looking and good natured army man en route to the
military school where he's to teach and re-unite with his fiancee Pamela
(Rita Johnson). And he falls for Susan's 12-year-old routine hook line and
sinker, while she falls for him pretty much immediately and plans on
dropping the pretense as soon as possible. But then their train gets
stuck, and Pamela comes to pick him up, and when she finds Kirby in a
compartment with Susan, she has to pretend to be 12 a little longer - and
makes a good job of it, as Pamela invites her to stay at her place until
the rails to Iowa are free again. Soon enough all the young students at
the school fall for Susan, and it's only Pamela's sister Lucy (Diana
Lynn), who actually is 12, who sees Susan's all grown up. And that fits
perfectly with her plans, as she thinks her sister Pamela is holding Kirby
back, as he'd rather go overseas to be in place should the US enter World
War II, but she conspires to keep him teaching instead of getting ready
for war. And Lucy figures Susan is just the person who can help her. So
Susan has a lots on her hands, arranging for Kirby to be sent overseas
while keeping her own feelings for him in check as well as warding off a
platoon of love-hungry cadets while keeping up her pretense to be pre-teen
... and for a time she's even successful at it - but then Pamela finds out
her true identity and can figure out her true motives, and she's not one
to go down without a fight ... Only Billy Wilder's second film
as a director and his first in the USA, The Major and the Minor
already shows him at the top of his game: The film's swiftly and elegantly
directed, is full of alusions, also of a sexual nature, without ever
coming across as blunt of vulgar, keeps the thing light-hearted and
wonderfully balances out romance and comedy. And he keeps the pace swift
enough that one only notices minor leaps of reason in hindsight. And add
to that a top-notch cast led by a brilliant Ginger Rogers, and you've got
yourself a gem from "good old Hollywood", and one you certainly
won't regret watching.
|
|
|
review © by Mike Haberfelner
|
Feeling lucky? Want to search any of my partnershops yourself for more, better results? (commissions earned) |
The links below will take you just there!!!
|
|
|
Thanks for watching !!!
|
|
|
Robots and rats,
demons and potholes, cuddly toys and shopping mall Santas,
love and death and everything in between,
Tales to Chill Your Bones to is all of that.
Tales to Chill Your Bones to -
a collection of short stories and mini-plays ranging from the horrific to the darkly humourous,
from the post-apocalyptic to the weirdly romantic,
tales that will give you a chill and maybe a chuckle,
all thought up by the twisted mind of screenwriter and film reviewer Michael Haberfelner.
Tales to Chill Your Bones to
the new anthology by Michael Haberfelner
Out now from Amazon!!! |
|