A Rosalind Russell comedy without laughs is like a Meryl Streep drama without accents. A big "huh?" and rather pointless. Once again, she's a spinster career woman (psychiatrist) disillusioned over men, even though she's successfully treated soldiers with shell shock. On her way back to Chicago from New York, she keeps on getting knocked around by soldier Lee Bowman who won't stop pestering her, and along with her physician father (Charles Winninger, taking over the role obviously because Charles Coburn was not available) tries to trap her into marriage to cure her of her phobia.
A couple of laughs do sneak in (one where Russell's secretary Sara Haden mistakenly witnesses Bowman exchanging wedding vows with Winninger!) but they seem pointless. This is another "career woman" film where the lady finds she can't live without men and has been lying to herself all along. Adele Jergens struggles as a Bolivian spitfire utilized by Russell to keep Bowman away from her with the pathetic claim that Jergens believes her kiss has killed three men.
I wish there was more of the train passenger with the Elmer Fudd voice, Mary Treen as another passenger, and Haden, quite different here than she was as "Andy Hardy's" Aunt Millie. Percy Kilbride, of all people, plays a judge (whom Bowman tries to convince Russell marries people, all illegally), with Carl Switzer as a delivery boy, and cameos by Mabel Paige and Almira Sessions, two of the great character actresses of the 1940's. The trouble here is with the predictable script that fails to succeed as comedy and misuses its talented leading lady in a role which she could play in her sleep.
A couple of laughs do sneak in (one where Russell's secretary Sara Haden mistakenly witnesses Bowman exchanging wedding vows with Winninger!) but they seem pointless. This is another "career woman" film where the lady finds she can't live without men and has been lying to herself all along. Adele Jergens struggles as a Bolivian spitfire utilized by Russell to keep Bowman away from her with the pathetic claim that Jergens believes her kiss has killed three men.
I wish there was more of the train passenger with the Elmer Fudd voice, Mary Treen as another passenger, and Haden, quite different here than she was as "Andy Hardy's" Aunt Millie. Percy Kilbride, of all people, plays a judge (whom Bowman tries to convince Russell marries people, all illegally), with Carl Switzer as a delivery boy, and cameos by Mabel Paige and Almira Sessions, two of the great character actresses of the 1940's. The trouble here is with the predictable script that fails to succeed as comedy and misuses its talented leading lady in a role which she could play in her sleep.