It's the writing and the supporting players that make this romantic screwball comedy a gem. Nightclub performer Barbara Stanwyck must hide from the law so she visits the home of professor Gary Cooper who caught her "Drum Boogie" act while researching slang words for an updated dictionary. She totally entrances the nutty elderly professors and is physically distracting to Cooper, while creating an instant enemy in housekeeper Kathleen Howard who distrusts the scantily clad Stanwyck. Sure, Stanwyck teaches the professors how to conga and even introduces Cooper to the pleasures of "yum yum" (kissing). Then when her gangster boyfriend (a young Dana Andrews) shows up, Stanwyck must face the facts that she loves the nerdy Cooper and wants to leave her old life behind.
This is a variation on "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", although like Tallulah Bankhead said, here Stanwyck maybe used to be Snow White, but she drifted. Each of the professor's personalities match the dwarfs, but as they get to know Stanwyck, they fall more and more under her spell. I actually found Stanwyck, who is my favorite 30's and 40's leading lady, a bit annoying at times in this. Her character gets more and more needy and somewhat annoying, whining at times and loosing the street smarts she seems to have at the beginning. Even in the most fragile of her characters, Stanwyck was never a wimp, and at times, her character lacks in consistency. But there are many classic moments between her and the men, and performance wise, Stanwyck can never do wrong. She was nominated for an Oscar for this performance, but for me, I feel she gave better performances in the same year's "The Lady Eve" and especially "Meet John Doe", also opposite Cooper. (It should be noted that her "Lady Eve" co-star, Henry Fonda, was also her leading man in her now almost forgotten 1941 movie, "You Belong to Me", a screwball comedy that is actually quite good, if not the classic, that her other films of that year was.) Gary Cooper plays against type here as the wimpy professor who is hiding from the opposite sex and only finds it when he ventures out of the metaphorical woods he is hiding in and into the city jungle of Stanwyck's world. He won the Oscar for "Sergeant York" that year, which in comparison to this, shows his versatility. Dana Andrews, in one of his first roles, shows off his rugged handsomeness that would later make him a dependable, if not now legendary star of such film noirs as "Laura" and "Boomerang." Every one of the character actors playing the professors are wonderful, particularly Richard Haydn, S.Z. Sakall and Edward Everett Horton. They can say more with their eyes than most actors could today with an entire script. I actually enjoyed Stanwyck's interaction with the professors more than her relationship with Cooper. When Stanwyck finally must deal with Kathleen Howard's untrusting housekeeper, her old self emerges and I thought, "Welcome back, Sugarpuss! Where have you been hiding?" "Drum Boogie" is a great nightclub sequence, and Stanwyck does a wonderful job performing it. The follow-up, "Match Boogie", is great as well. This isn't the classic I was hoping it would be based upon its reputation, but it is masterfully directed, written, and acted. I was just hoping for more toughness from Stanwyck, although seeing the tenderness she shows towards the professors is touching.
This is a variation on "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", although like Tallulah Bankhead said, here Stanwyck maybe used to be Snow White, but she drifted. Each of the professor's personalities match the dwarfs, but as they get to know Stanwyck, they fall more and more under her spell. I actually found Stanwyck, who is my favorite 30's and 40's leading lady, a bit annoying at times in this. Her character gets more and more needy and somewhat annoying, whining at times and loosing the street smarts she seems to have at the beginning. Even in the most fragile of her characters, Stanwyck was never a wimp, and at times, her character lacks in consistency. But there are many classic moments between her and the men, and performance wise, Stanwyck can never do wrong. She was nominated for an Oscar for this performance, but for me, I feel she gave better performances in the same year's "The Lady Eve" and especially "Meet John Doe", also opposite Cooper. (It should be noted that her "Lady Eve" co-star, Henry Fonda, was also her leading man in her now almost forgotten 1941 movie, "You Belong to Me", a screwball comedy that is actually quite good, if not the classic, that her other films of that year was.) Gary Cooper plays against type here as the wimpy professor who is hiding from the opposite sex and only finds it when he ventures out of the metaphorical woods he is hiding in and into the city jungle of Stanwyck's world. He won the Oscar for "Sergeant York" that year, which in comparison to this, shows his versatility. Dana Andrews, in one of his first roles, shows off his rugged handsomeness that would later make him a dependable, if not now legendary star of such film noirs as "Laura" and "Boomerang." Every one of the character actors playing the professors are wonderful, particularly Richard Haydn, S.Z. Sakall and Edward Everett Horton. They can say more with their eyes than most actors could today with an entire script. I actually enjoyed Stanwyck's interaction with the professors more than her relationship with Cooper. When Stanwyck finally must deal with Kathleen Howard's untrusting housekeeper, her old self emerges and I thought, "Welcome back, Sugarpuss! Where have you been hiding?" "Drum Boogie" is a great nightclub sequence, and Stanwyck does a wonderful job performing it. The follow-up, "Match Boogie", is great as well. This isn't the classic I was hoping it would be based upon its reputation, but it is masterfully directed, written, and acted. I was just hoping for more toughness from Stanwyck, although seeing the tenderness she shows towards the professors is touching.