One of my former music professors summed up the Classical Period as follows: Tonic always wins. As with Classical music, so with this classic-style romantic comedy, in more than one sense. That being said, the central romance plot was actually the least interesting part to me. This turned out to be a surprisingly solid ensemble piece where every character gets at least one moment to shine. ZaSu Pitts got one scene early on where she expresses her distaste at Jean Simmons taking a job as a nightclub secretary, making more of an impression than Joan Blondell (God bless her!), who was given a mostly one-note character as a pushy stage mom to Neile Adams' bubbly ecdysiast, who had more, shall we say, domestic ambitions. The three leads all did fine, but Neile Adams and Julie Wilson were the highlights for me. The latter with her sparkling cabaret numbers, and the former with a well-choreographed, saucy striptease, "Hustlin' Newsgal." In no way did this rewrite the book on romantic comedies, but it was undemanding and, courtesy of the dying Production Code, allowed to be a little more risque than had been the norm five or ten years prior. A nice a little gem of a movie.
As an addendum: 1. Don't date the help, they say. But what is Paul Douglas' pet name for Jean Simmons (that everyone else ends up using)? Baby. Well played, script, well played.
2. It is an unwritten movie rule that any literature quotations/references must be a meta-commentary on the movie's plot.
As an addendum: 1. Don't date the help, they say. But what is Paul Douglas' pet name for Jean Simmons (that everyone else ends up using)? Baby. Well played, script, well played.
2. It is an unwritten movie rule that any literature quotations/references must be a meta-commentary on the movie's plot.