SYNOPSICS
She Wouldn't Say Yes (1945) is a English movie. Alexander Hall has directed this movie. Rosalind Russell,Lee Bowman,Adele Jergens,Charles Winninger are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1945. She Wouldn't Say Yes (1945) is considered one of the best Comedy,Romance movie in India and around the world.
Susan Lane is a gifted psychiatrist, grounded in self-control. Before returning by train to her practice in Chicago, she spends time back East with war veterans, building their self-esteem, but frowning on the impulsive, as represented by a favorite comic strip called "The Nixie." She bumps into Michael Kent, an officer and the comic strip's author. He likes her instantly and she dislikes him. He's headed to the Pacific, sees her on the train, gets off in Chicago, and with her father's help, pursues her and hatches a plan to marry her. Meanwhile, she has her own plan to get rid of him with the help of a blond patient. Will the Nixie get into her psyche?
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She Wouldn't Say Yes (1945) Reviews
Arthur Q. Bryan is enough reason to see, and hear, this film!
Lee Bowman plays a cartoonist who is going off to fight in the Pacific and Rosalind Russell a psychiatrist. Russell's problem is a common one in the 1940s in films--a woman competes in a man's world and as a result is rather sexless and sublimates this in her job!! It's very chauvinistic and doesn't play especially well today, but that's the way it is, folks! Eventually, through MANY contrivances the two end up together and eventually are destined to fall in love. Whatever--it's not like this sort of thing comes as any surprise! Arthur Q. Bryan is a name very, very few people would recognize. He was the voice for Elmer Fudd up through most of the 1950s. Yet, aside from his voice talents, he didn't appear in all that many films. So here is a very rare chance to actually see what he looked like--and it was a LOT like his cartoon alter-ego. However, you really don't have to look for him in his bit role--as he talks EXACTLY like Fudd! It's sort of surreal seeing this pudgy balding man talking with such a strange yet familiar voice--and it's reason enough to see this Rosalind Russell-Lee Bowman comedy!! And, as an added bonus, you get to see a brief appearance of Alfalfa Switzer in one of his few adult roles (towards the very end of the movie). Sadly, aside from the novelty of seeing these odd supporting characters, there isn't a whole lot more reason to see the film. Although it is a screwball comedy starring Rosalind Russell (who was magnificent in "His Girl Friday"), here she is just blah...because the story is so incredibly blah. The story suffers from one major problem and lots of little ones--all because the writing is so incredibly bad. The major problem is that the film isn't funny--a pretty bad problem for a comedy! The minor problems include how contrived the plot is at times, the lack of chemistry between the leads (much of it due to writing--Lee Bowman and Rosalind Russell COULD have been good together) and the film just tries way, way too hard to make you laugh. This is because it didn't really trust the characters to develop naturally--it all came off as goofy and forced. All in all, it's not a terrible film but with good support and lead actors, it SHOULD have been a zillion times better.
Slick but uninvolving post WW2 comedy.
The bite had gone out of the Columbia comedies by the time they got around to having Roz Russell, in her Travis Bainton wardrobe, front this one as a psychiatrist who assures army hospital patients that we don't get shell shock anymore. According to formula, her self sufficiency has to be wiped out by the final reel and the agent of change here is a less than sparkling Lee Bowman, serviceman cartoonist whose Nixie strip character banishes inhibitions. The studio's most prestigious technicians give things a smoothness that doesn't make them any more plausible. Best element is the forties atmosphere - train, clothes, cars. Russell and Hall got better results with MY SISTER EILEEN.
A great howl throughout, and as good as ever
This is an exceptional comedy in that each person of the cast of nearly two dozen adds something to the humor. Thus, the supporting cast does even more to help the main stars deliver a great hilarious movie. Yet, the few reviews to the time of this writing seemed to miss much of the humor because it was dated, out of tune with the present times, or not politically correct. Too bad for them. "She Wouldn't Say Yes" has a wonderful cast. Rosalind Russell is the over-confident psychiatrist, Dr. Susan Lane, who doesn't need a man in her life, let alone a husband. Charles Winninger is her father, also an M.D., but he would like to have grandchildren someday. Lee Bowman is a well-known syndicated cartoonist, Michael Kent. He's enroute to serve in the post-war Army overseas. Among the supporting cast who contribute much laughter are Harry Davenport as Albert, Percy Kilbride as Judge Whittaker, Adele Jergens as Allura, Sara Haden as Laura Pitts, Mabel Paige as Mrs. Whittaker, and Almira Sessions as Miss Downer. The plot is a crazy one, and moves from a serious scenario in an Army hospital to a train ride from New York to Chicago, to the medical offices of the two doctors and more. The comedy is good throughout, but one scenario alone, toward the end of the film, makes it worth watching. The marrying judge plot has to be one of the funniest segments ever in a movie. It doesn't ruin it to describe it here, because watching it on film is so funny. To set it up, Doc Lane (dad) and Kent are in Doc's office meeting with a local judge. They plan to trick Susan into marrying Kent. They need to convince the judge that she's unbalanced. Then they have to convince Susan that the judge is a client who is unbalanced. After Susan's secretary alerts her to something strange going on with her father, Susan goes into his office but Kent hides behind the door. Doc says, "The judge is just crazy about marrying people." And the judge says to Susan, "I wish you'd think about my marrying you." The dialog before, between and after this is hilarious. Back in her office with Miss Pitts, Susan says, "In all my experience I've never come in contact with a mania like that." After the judge and Kent leave, Susan goes back to her father who then gives her the case. She'll go to the judge's home that night to begin therapy. So, she goes, expecting to treat his mania for marrying people. But the judge has informed his wife and their neighbor, Miss Downer – who will be witnesses, of the pending marriage of this unbalanced woman. Kent is to arrive later, just in time for the wedding. The dialog is some of the most ingenious, hilarious comedy ever written. The judge asks Susan, "Do you know why you're here?" Susan replies, "Yes, do you?" Susan gets the two women aside for a moment and says, "Your husband wanted to marry me this afternoon." Mrs. Whittaker says, "He still does." Miss Downer says, "That's what worries us." There is much, much more. This is one over the top hilariously funny scenario in a very funny film. It was written and played in the 1940s when it was very funny. And, these decades later it is still very, very funny – and clean. I recommend it to those who have a sense of humor and who want a good laugh. I don't know why some people think comedy has to be written, lived and acted only in the present milieu? That would make everything from the past as terrible as most of what passes as humor in recent years. Why would some people put today's restrictions on a film to strangle and stifle the genuine humor that it contained when made? A reviewer will refer to films made before "the code," as though that was a hindrance in itself to films. Then that same reviewer will try to impose a modern "code" that would restrict a film even more. Instead, should we not look for the humor as it was expressed and felt in those times past? Who says the one or two headline stars of a film have to stand out with the best lines all the time? Who says a supporting cast can't steal the scene with occasional bursts of comedic brilliance? Who says that scripts and writers can't spread the humor around as appropriate and for the best laughs? Who says that the customs and mores of a time past can't be funny in the present -- or understood and appreciated as they were originally? Who says that the social customs that guided filmmaking in the past can't still be sources of hilarity and laughter today? Maybe it's a sign of the times that so many people today can't laugh at themselves and the world around them. Perhaps we need to look more closely at the past when, in seriously tough and dour times, people were able to laugh at their foibles and those of others. And the movie makers were able to give them great fodder for laughter, as in this film, "She Wouldn't Say Yes." I laughed long and hard in several spots in this film. If you didn't on first viewing, watch it again. Turn off the critic and just watch the people and listen to the exchanges. Look for the funny in a deadpan expression. Look for the hilarity in a seemingly flat response. Look for the humor in all the usual places as well. And look and watch for the laughter that lay hidden and ready to pounce from so many sharp turns or quick changes in scene of a fast and screwy script. This movie is a great howl throughout.
not quite as good as His Girl Friday, but fun anyway
Minor Spoilers - This one comes five years after "His Girl Friday", my personal R.Russell role, but ten years Before she will be one of the Auntie Mames. Pretty clever script, but the pacing in the middle third of the film is strange and slow, and it has something to do with the triangle between herself (a headstrong psychiatric doctor "Susan Lane"), comic-strip writer Michael Kent (Lee Bowman) and "Allura the bombshell starlet" played by Adele Jergens. Kent claims to be madly in love with the always-confidant Doctor Lane, but gets distracted by Allura when she gets in the way. Susan resents Kent's free-wheeling ways, even though it appears her father has the same trait. Some great scenes on the train, when they are "accidentally" assigned the same train sleeper berth. But... of course this was made while the film code was in full force, and the conductors, porters, and passengers all just assumed they were married... it seemed a little more shocking to the viewer until someone says "your wife", and the truth all comes out later, of course causing a stir. The writers tackle a couple different large issues here; women's rights, free will, doing what one wants even if society frowns on it, proper conduct for un-married people. On the train, there is a character who looks and sounds JUST like Mel Blanc, but it must not be him, since he's not in the credits. The last third of the film picks up steam again when they trick Susan into getting married, which was a little far-fetched and drawn-out, but somehow they manage to convince her to go through with it. Harry Davenport saved this movie, and steals the show as the hobo turned butler. You'll recognize him as the older, wiser father-figure in about half the films made in the 1930s and 1940s. Lots of writers listed on this one, and for the most part, they did a good job; I guess I was hoping for the same magic that we saw between Russell and C Grant. Here, "Allura" upstages the others in this one, and if were director, I'd have toned down her part. Directed by Alexander Hall, who, according to Wikipedia, was dating Lucy until she met Desi, and ironically they later hired Hall to direct "Forever Darling". Fact IS stranger than fiction.
Scenes 8 and 9 elevate this movie
I would agree that most of this movie is a bit stale, but if the entire movie had had the same energy as scenes 8 and 9 this would be remembered as a great screwball comedy. Those scenes have the perfect set-up that Bogdonovich has stated make screwballs work. That is the characters are acting normal and logical to themselves but we know what the characters don't. There are so many characters involved in these scenes but the dialog remains logical. The writing in these scenes is superb. The character progression of Dr. Lane is the major impediment to this movie. As others have said, it's not realistic that she falls in love at the end. If she had slowly thawed over the course of the movie it would have been better.