An Exercise In Nonsense

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I cannot claim this as among the great comedy films which would come later for Wilder (I'm thinking Some Like It Hot Kiss Me Stupid and The Front Page) this is certainly very good. Ginger Rogers looks glossy and glamorous in the opening shot and is in the last shot too, giving an excellent performance in a part which could easily have fallen flat on its face. In this she is helped along by Ray Milland who gets every little thing right in another performance which could easily have fallen on its nose. There are plenty of plot twists and turns. The plot ground covered is unusual. A nice touch is that Ginger Rogers' mother is played and very well by her real-life mother.

In Billy Wilder's first American comedy he secured the stage and his basis for the rest of his days in America. His films were always good, and the remarkable thing is that he never repeated himself - every film he made is thoroughly original, and already in his first hit he ventured on some very bold challenges to spice his audience with which proved more than successful. The script is ingenious, and although you know from the start that they will win each other in the end there are many troublesome question marks on the way, and the great issue is how on earth they will manage themselves out of this mess of masquerade and intrigue. Ginger Rogers was always a superb comedienne, and Ray Milland was never better than in the beginning - he later turned to more and more doubtful characters, from "The Lost Weekend" and on, but here he is still sparkling.The triumph though is the script, so eloquent, intelligent and ingenious, and every detail, although the intrigue many times turns into precarious and dangerous ground, is perfect. There is even some trying suspense, as Ginger at the telephone while the whole army is after her.Great entertainment on level with the best screwball comedies, and yet this one is rather overlooked and unknown.

No need to recap the familiar plot.Thanks to a winning Ginger Rogers, the difficult impersonation of a 12-year old is brought off in charming fashion. Never mind that the actress is actually 30; we're willing to suspend disbelief because of Roger's skill at girlish innocence. The first part is a real hoot, especially with a randy Robert Benchley getting a scrambled egg along with a scalp rub. The train ride too amounts to a sparkly farce as Rogers has to manage sleeping arrangements with Milland in a single compartment. Also, shouldn't overlook Milland's avuncular charm as the good Samaritan "uncle". Any slip on his part with a presumed adolescent and the comedic aspect collapses. But once events reach the military school where Milland instructs, the narrative settles into a more conventional type comedy. It's still amusing but not up to the inspired first part. After all, it's hard to get chuckles from a disciplined cadet corps. I guess my only complaint is that the deliciously droll Benchley doesn't get more screen time. Just his presence is enough to get me chuckling.Anyway, it's tricky subject matter that could have spoiled at many points. Fortunately, Wilder and company manage to keep the amusement rolling in tasteful fashion despite the risks. All in all, the Paramount production amounts to one of the better comedies of the period.

"The Major and the Minor" was the first American film directed by Billy Wilder, although contrary to what is sometimes stated it was not his directorial debut. (That was the French film "Mauvaise Graine" from eight years earlier). A young woman named Susan Applegate, travelling by train from New York City to her home in Iowa, discovers she has only enough money to cover a child's fare, so disguises herself as an eleven-year-old girl- "twelve next week"- and renaming herself Su-Su. On board the train she meets Major Philip Kirby, an instructor at a military academy, and when the train is delayed by flooding on the tracks Major Kirby invites Susan, whom he believes to be a young child, to stay at the school until her parents can fetch her.The film was made in 1942, shortly after America's entry into the war, but the action takes place the previous year, shortly before it, and there is a definite patriotic subtext. Philip believes that war is coming, and is anxious to be posted overseas where he will have a greater opportunity of serving his country in an active role. His scheming fiancée Pamela, however, is determined to keep him at the academy, well away from the front line. Philip, however, has an ally in Pamela's younger sister Lucy, who dislikes her sister and is determined to thwart her machinations, and who recruits Susan as an ally in her cause.Although the film was ignored at the award ceremonies- it was the only one of Wilder's Hollywood films not to be nominated for a single Oscar or Golden Globe until "Kiss Me, Stupid" in 1964- it was well-received by the critics at the time. Variety, for example, called it a "sparkling and effervescing piece of farce-comedy", and, to judge from the reviews on this board, it would still seem to have its admirers today. What struck me about it, however, was how odd it looks from a twenty-first century perspective. Part of the problem is that the idea of Ginger Rogers successfully disguising herself as a child is an implausible one. The only person who sees through Susan's disguise is Lucy, played by Diana Lynn as that stock comic figure, the obnoxiously knowing child with a middle-aged and formidably intellectual head on young shoulders. Everyone else is completely taken in. This was an idea which really needed an actress considerably younger than the 31-year-old Rogers. Veronica Lake, famously petite and only 19 at the time, could perhaps have pulled it off, but the studio doubtless wanted a more established star.Even weirder is the idea of a man falling in love with an eleven-year-old girl, or at least with a girl whom he believes to be eleven years old, but that is precisely what Philip does. As soon as he realises that Susan is an adult he proposes marriage to her, his engagement to Pamela having been broken off by this stage. Philip is not the only one to succumb to Su-Su's charms, as several of the cadets at the academy, boys in their early teens, also take a shine to her. There is a running joke about the boys using an explanation of German tactics during the invasion of France as a pretext for putting their arms around her. One wonders how Wilder managed to get this sort of thing past the Hays Office at a time when thirteen-year-old boys were generally portrayed in the cinema as mischievous children rather than budding Lotharios.The film has some good qualities. The role of Philip Kirby was originally written with Cary Grant, that master of screwball comedy, in mind, and there are some witty lines which one could just imagine Grant enunciating. Possibly the best-known is "Why don't you get out of that wet coat and into a dry martini?" Ray Milland, who would later collaborate with Wilder on "The Long Weekend", is perfectly good in the role, although I thought Grant might have been better. There are also some amusing scenes such as the one where Susan imitates Pamela in a telephone call in order to get Philip transferred to the post he wants. (Ginger Rogers obviously had some talent as a mimic). The fundamental weirdness of the film's central concept, however, means that today it is difficult to take it altogether seriously or to find it altogether likable. Although there is a feeling in some quarters that Wilder could do no wrong, "The Major and the Minor" does not compare with his really great films such as "Double Indemnity", "Sunset Boulevard", "Sabrina" or "Some Like It Hot". 5/10