Tonight's movie was "The Major And The Minor" (1942), a very funny romantic comedy helmed by Billy Wilder in his American directorial debut. Ginger Rogers stars as a young woman from Iowa trying to make it in New York City. As the movie opens, she is hurrying down the street on the way to an appointment for her new job as a "hair restoration specialist". This is the kind of opening setup that Wilder excelled in, totally off the wall and wacky. Ginger knocks on the door of her client, a pudgy middle aged man, who invites her in and immediately starts hitting on her. She is all business, though, so she opens her suitcase and takes out an electric "scalp massager", some hair tonic and a couple of eggs for an "egg shampoo". All of this takes place in a sequence of Screwball pacing. The man offers her a Martini. Ginger breaks an egg over his head and begins shampooing. He won't give up; finally she has had enough and backs out the door, suitcase in hand, with one spare egg left to use as a threat should he refuse to let her leave.
We are about ten minutes into the movie. Ginger is ready to leave New York and head home to Iowa. This hair restoring job was about the tenth one she's had since she arrived. NYC is too crazy for her, so she goes to the train station and with her last 27.50, which she kept in a sealed envelope for return train fare in case things didn't work out, she stands in line to buy a ticket back to Council Bluffs. Then the ticket clerk informs her that the fare has been raised to 32 dollars and she doesn't have the extra dough.
Thoroughly frustrated, she is about to storm out of the train station when she spots a mother buying tickets for herself and her daughter. The daughter, about twelve years old, is getting her ticket for half price.
A light bulb goes off in Rogers' head and the next thing we see is that she is in the ladies' room, scrubbing off all her makeup, tying her hair in pigtails and quick-tailoring her clothes with scissors to make them smaller. She emerges wearing a Pollyanna hat, with fresh face and "new" clothes, looking for all the world like a too-tall and somewhat too developed adolescent girl. This is where the Screwball is kicked up a notch. She returns to the ticket counter with a man from the lobby whom she has paid a couple of bucks to pose as her father, and this time the clerk sells her a half-price ticket, though not without giving her a funny look.
Now the stage is set for a classic farce. The paid-off "father" goes his own way and Ginger gets on the train heading back to Iowa. When the conductor passes through her car checking tickets, he stops to quiz her. She claims to be twelve years old. He is suspicious and the next few sequences involve his attempts to trip up her ruse.
Just when he is about to bust her and kick her off the train, she escapes by hiding in another compartment. She thinks it is empty, but then Ray Milland appears - tall, handsome, erudite and charming. The room is his. Rogers has to think quickly so she feigns a stomach ache, claims to be delirious and speaks in a little girl voice. Milland falls for it and insists that she lie down on his bunk until she feels better. Thus she has evaded the pursuing conductor and is safe for the time being.
When she wakes up, Milland introduces himself. He is a Major in the Army, on his way to a teaching position at a military academy in Wisconsin. She plays dumb and continues her little girl act. He is "The Major", she is "The Minor" (because she's "twelve years old") and there you have both your title and your premise.
It is a premise that could almost certainly never be green-lighted today in these degenerate times, but the morality and sensibilities in 1942 were light years away. Despite the terrible war, it really was a more innocent time, meaning mostly that it was less cynical. So you could make a movie about a thirty year old woman posing as a twelve year old, and have a forty year old Army Major fall for her ruse and take her under his wing (and nothing more), and have it all work without being puerile because it was directed by the mega-talented Billy Wilder, with the equally skilled Rogers and Milland in the lead roles. In fact, not only is the movie not unduly suggestive, but it is heartwarming and hilarious, because Wilder gives his audience credit for being in on the joke. Ginger Rogers is not twelve years old; she is thirty. And she is falling in love with the gallant Ray Milland, who has no clue she is fooling him.
He does have a fiancee back at the academy, however, and in movies of the Golden Era the existence of a fiance often signals a plot twist. There are also 300 cadets to deal with, once Ginger is brought back to the academy with Milland, until he can locate her "parents". By this time the ruse is too far gone, Rogers can't get out of it. She is in love with Milland but he thinks she is twelve (and tall for her age). She also has every teenaged boy at the academy coming on to her in awkward ways, but she does have one ally in Diana Lynn, a sophisticated young actress who plays the fifteen year old sister of Ray Milland's fiancee. Miss Lynn knows of Ginger's ruse. She knows her real age and also knows of her feelings for The Major.
She and her sister the fiancee are not close. Diana Lynn knows her sister is a schemer, and she will turn her attention to Rogers in an effort to hook her up with Milland, while trying to help Ginger harmlessly dissolve her adolescent deception.
Ginger Rogers is in every scene, she carries the picture but with support from the entire cast, including a half dozen or so young men playing the military cadets. Rogers' own mother has a small role near the end, and there isn't a casting decision nor a single edit that is out of place in this movie.
It is a gem of gems, and may even require a hanky at the very end.
Two Very Big Thumbs Up for "The Major And The Minor", made during a better time, a time of optimism rather than cynicism, a time of determined cultural uplift in the face of world war, movies made looking at the best in people, and making them laugh in the process.
10/10 for "The Major And The Minor". Ginger Rogers goes to the top of the heap in my book. I haven't been as familiar with her work as I have with other actresses, but I can see she was much more than a fantastic dancer. Really she had the charisma and overall onscreen abilities of the very biggest of the movie stars. /////
That's all for tonight. The singing was good in church this morning. I hope you had a good day too.
See you in the morning, with tons of love as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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