Thelma Ritter is the whole reason for this film. She's the lynch pin, and the best part. If you liked her in All About Eve or A Letter to Three Wives, you have to see her in this movie.
***POSSIBLE SPOILERS*** (no ending giveaways)
Ellen McNulty (Ritter) leaves her Jersey hamburger stand to the bank and heads to Ohio, where her son, Val, an eager young professional at the Kalinger Machine Works, has just fallen in love at first sight with the beautiful Maggie Carleton.
This movie is built on the typical stock for romantic comedies -- mistaken identity and people who either won't talk or won't listen. Val is torn between wanting to move up to a higher social level and wanting to take care of his mother. Ellen doesn't want to interfere with her son's marriage, but she knows his young bride needs her help, so she takes advantage of Maggie having mistaken her for a cook to move in as the maid. Toss in Maggie's know-it-all ways and reluctance to let anyone else talk, Maggie's own snobbish, selfish mother, and Maggie's former beau (and Val's boss) Junior Kalinger, and you have all the misunderstandings and mistakes you could want to test the strength of true love.
There are no perfect people in this movie, which just adds to the sweetness. Val is caught between expectations of success and deep feelings of duty to the mother who he knows sacrificed so much for him. Maggie is struggling to avoid the snobbery and arrogance that have colored her life as an ambassador's daughter even while she exhibits some of the very traits she dislikes in others. And Ellen, in seeking to do good on her own terms, builds a web of small lies that come apart at the end, creating the movie's crisis.
It's Thelma Ritter's performance as Ellen that make the movie's assorted confusions and complications hang together. Playing another in a long line of working class women with good hearts and more common sense than average, she has most of the good lines and best scenes. Gene Tierney and John Lund have a nice chemistry between them which lends credence to their whirlwind romance, and Marian Hopkins as Mrs. Carleton is overacting her silk stockings off to good effect. The chemistry between Ritter and Lund is even better than that between him and Tierney -- they have some great bits that are all gesture and expression. It's Ritter's movie from start to finish.
***POSSIBLE SPOILERS*** (no ending giveaways)
Ellen McNulty (Ritter) leaves her Jersey hamburger stand to the bank and heads to Ohio, where her son, Val, an eager young professional at the Kalinger Machine Works, has just fallen in love at first sight with the beautiful Maggie Carleton.
This movie is built on the typical stock for romantic comedies -- mistaken identity and people who either won't talk or won't listen. Val is torn between wanting to move up to a higher social level and wanting to take care of his mother. Ellen doesn't want to interfere with her son's marriage, but she knows his young bride needs her help, so she takes advantage of Maggie having mistaken her for a cook to move in as the maid. Toss in Maggie's know-it-all ways and reluctance to let anyone else talk, Maggie's own snobbish, selfish mother, and Maggie's former beau (and Val's boss) Junior Kalinger, and you have all the misunderstandings and mistakes you could want to test the strength of true love.
There are no perfect people in this movie, which just adds to the sweetness. Val is caught between expectations of success and deep feelings of duty to the mother who he knows sacrificed so much for him. Maggie is struggling to avoid the snobbery and arrogance that have colored her life as an ambassador's daughter even while she exhibits some of the very traits she dislikes in others. And Ellen, in seeking to do good on her own terms, builds a web of small lies that come apart at the end, creating the movie's crisis.
It's Thelma Ritter's performance as Ellen that make the movie's assorted confusions and complications hang together. Playing another in a long line of working class women with good hearts and more common sense than average, she has most of the good lines and best scenes. Gene Tierney and John Lund have a nice chemistry between them which lends credence to their whirlwind romance, and Marian Hopkins as Mrs. Carleton is overacting her silk stockings off to good effect. The chemistry between Ritter and Lund is even better than that between him and Tierney -- they have some great bits that are all gesture and expression. It's Ritter's movie from start to finish.