Tonight's movie was "The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer" (1947), starring Cary Grant, Shirley Temple and Myrna Loy, an all-star cast if there ever was one. The comedy is classic screwball, though the story borders on risque. Temple, who grew up to be a knockout beauty, is a high school student who develops a crush on Grant, a painter who has just given a lecture at the school on the importance of art. In the movie, he is portrayed as being eighteen years her senior (35 to 17). The age difference was tamped down, as in real life it was 24 years. In today's climate, the movie would likely never have been made. As it stands, however, the story comes across as a clean cut presentation of an eternal phenomenon : the fact that teenaged girls do sometimes have crushes on older men, often teachers or any man of intellect or passion who stirs feelings of worldly sophistication. It helps if the man looks like Cary Grant, but the truth is that - with teens - raging hormones rule, especially when combined with a desire to jump suddenly into adulthood in the romantic sense, when such a crush becomes heavy.
Because this movie was made in the late 40s, there is no danger of the subject matter crossing the line of impropriety. Still, Hollywood was beginning to come of age by that time, in dealing with issues of sexuality. "Bachelor" has no sexual overtones whatsoever (which would have not only sunk the film but also would've caused a scandal), and yet, when Shirley Temple sneaks into Cary Grant's apartment in a form fitting suit with upswept hair piled high on her head, the message is clear, though tactfully demonstrated. She falls asleep on his couch, waiting for him to get home. When he does arrive, he is comically outraged (because remember this is Screwball), but when he tells her to leave he means it. No dirty old man is he.
The only problem for Grant is that right at that exact moment, someone is pounding on his door, demanding to be let in. That someone is Myrna Loy, playing Temple's older sister, a judge. With Loy, there was a 23 year real life age difference with Shirley, so you have to stretch a bit to imagine the two as sisters, but once you suspend disbelief there is no problem. Loy is at Grant's door with her District Attorney friend (Rudy Vallee). They have been tipped off that her underage sister is in the apartment, and Loy is pissed. What's more, when the movie started about 20 minutes prior, Cary Grant was on trial in her courtroom for assault. It seems he punched someone out in a nightclub, over a woman, but not for the usual reasons. The reasons are screwball, again, but it's safe to say that Grant has trouble with women. They are crazy about him, it's too overwhelming for him to deal with, and now he has seventeen year old Temple in his apartment. She declares her love for him to her older sister Loy the Judge and to the district attorney as they break down Grant's door and take him to jail.
Keep in mind that the whole movie is played for laughs and directed with sophistication. What happens next is that much to Grant's surprise, Myrna Loy is ready to drop the charges against him. They really have nothing on him anyway, since he didn't touch Shirley, but Loy offers him an ironclad way out of the situation : She wants him to date little sister Shirley until her crush wears off. It turns out that Loy has an Uncle who is a psychologist. He has suggested this remedy after trying and failing to convince the determined Miss Temple to go out with Jerry, a boy her own age who plays on the basketball team and is obviously in love with her. She won't do it, because she is going to marry Cary Grant. Of this she is certain. For his part, Grant weighs his options between staying in jail and accepting Loy's parole requirement that he humor her sister. The emotional subtext for the audience is that Shirley Temple is America's Sweetheart, and now as a teenager is stone gorgeous, so how could Grant resist her?
Well, because she is still a kid, and he has to.
This is of course the moral of the story. In the movie, Grant resists her without any prompting, because he finds her advances highly unnerving. This is where the script has to tread a fine line, and the performances must be detached and adhere to precise comedic timing. The facial gestures of the actors are slightly exaggerated and no genuine emotion is shown. It looks real, but it is ersatz on purpose, to deflate any improper insinuation.
It is surprising to see a movie tackle this subject matter and play it relatively straight, in the context of a crazy comedy. There are scenes in the last 15 minutes of the film that are as nutty and well-timed as anything I've seen in the screwball genre, the kind of ensemble work that takes perfect execution on every actor's part in order to pull the scene off. The movie gets Two Thumbs Up for it's comedic merits alone, but I am gonna go that one better and give it Two Very Big Thumbs Up.
"The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer" is a very funny movie, with non-stop timing, about an age old phenomenon, presented in a wholesome but realistic way. /////
I had a nice hike out at Santa Susana this afternoon. Not long after I got there, I heard bells ringing out a familiar melody. The Oakwood Cemetery is right next door to Santa Su. They have an old church on the property, though in all my years of hiking I had never heard the bells before today. The cool thing was that I almost instantly recognized the tune. It was a hymn entitled "Up From The Grave He Arose". What I liked was that it was the closing hymn in our church service two days ago at Reseda Methodist. That particular hymn is one you can really belt, and I did so Sunday morning, as I always do when a song is in the right range. I had the melody in in my head all afternoon Sunday, and it became an earworm (as the kids call it) for a little while thereafter. I was still humming it to myself yesterday, in fact.
So to hear the Oakwood churchbells suddenly play it this afternoon was kind of neat.
"That's gotta be a sign", I thought. :)
I hope you had a nice day and I will see you in the morning. Love always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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