She Couldn't Say No

Plot— Wow! The people of small town Progress, Arkansas, are getting free money in the mail. So where's it coming from since the mail doesn't say. Is it greenbacks from heaven. No, it's from wealthy New Yorker, Simmons. Seems she wants to thank the town for saving her life as an infant. Now in town anonymously, Simmons meets the local characters, including straitlaced, hunky doctor, Mitchum. Trouble is, the sudden money may not be really helping this rural community with its traditional ways.

I'm not sure what the producers were reaching for. But, what they got is a rather flat result with a few lame stabs at comedy. Director Bacon makes no effort to liven up either the narrative or the acting. It's like he's just transferring script to screen. At the same time, Mitchum walks glumly through his doctor's role, never changing his one expression. Likely he's thinking about that obstacle course he has to run, while we get our ears blasted by moviedom's most infernal sounding horn. To say he's miscast is an understatement. Then too, Simmons seems unsure what to do, and since her scenes are ill-defined by the script or director, that's understandable. What's surprising is that such colorful hayseeds as Hunnicutt and Buchanan have little chance to practice their brand of hayseed humor. At least that would have lifted the lackluster results.

Nonetheless, the movie does remind us that the money economy is not the only basis of productive exchange. Instead of money, the small town residents use barter—an aspirin bottle may cost one chicken, for example. Of course, barter doesn't work in a complex economy. Still, I think it's well to be reminded that money (in whatever variety) is not the only possible means of meeting needs.

Anyway, after the Simmons-Mitchum triumph in the drama Angel Face (1952), this venture proves a disappointment, despite the titillating title. For sure, it's not a highlight of Mitchum's storied career, or Simmons's, for that matter.

Corby Lane (Jean Simmons) is a 21 year old wealthy heiress. As a child, her hometown took up a collection to send her to get medical treatment. She intends to pay it back with her new wealth. The only person she knows is Doctor Robert Sellers (Robert Mitchum) who organized the collection but she doesn't actually know him.

I like this premise. I really like this premise for a light rom-com but the two leads are slightly out of phase. Jean Simmons is playing too angry. I don't like her being haughty either. Her character can be flighty. I keep thinking Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde or Clueless' Cher. Robert Mitchum is mostly fine but he falls for her a little too quickly. He's a little presumptuous. Their chemistry is a little wonky. This should be more fun.

This was the hundredth and last of Lloyd Bacon's features (in 28 years!) and it's way down from his career summit, 1934's "42nd Street".

Set in Progress, Ark. (pop. 200), "She Couldn't Say No" concerns a revenant from childhood, heiress Jean Simmons. She learns that spraying her cash around anonymously causes more chaos than gratitude; but she finds love with local doctor and sage Mitchum, watched quizzically by assorted cornpone and cracker-barrel types.

There are few intimations of modernity. TV crews cover the mob hysteria when Ms Simmons's dollar-stuffed envelopes arrive in the citizens' mailboxes. Mitchum contemplates spending his bounty on "one of those bomb shelters". By and large, though, it's timeless, escapist hick hokum. The sun shines, no-one works too hard and the only blacks are a couple of goggling delivery men.

Having deprecated Audrey Hepburn in my comment on "Breakfast at Tiffany's", let me commend Jean Simmons as a British gamine with a wider range and a lot less self-satisfaction. She was suing to get out from under Howard Hughes's bizarre sway at RKO when "She Couldn't Say No" was shot (it was backburnered, like so many Hughes projects, while the boss dithered) and within five years she would do her best work in "Elmer Gantry" and "Spartacus". As usual in Simmons's earlier American movies, the script has to account for her English voice, and there's a clumsy bit of fishing slapstick to prove she isn't a stuck-up Limey; but her spirited sparring with Doctor Robert, her coolly measured tones (no hint of screech or shout) and smouldering sexiness win through.

Mitchum, limbering up for "Night of the Hunter", is his superbly somnolent, reflective yet dynamically masculine and mature self: this quiet man could make John Wayne look noisily neurotic. The couple, who had clicked in "Angel Face", keep the mild, pleasant and not too preachy romcom fresher than most from the McCarthyised, nuke-haunted Hollywood of the early Fifties, when America needed more laughs than it got at the cinema.

This whimsical movie is set in a fictitious town in Arkansas called Progress. Places such as Little Rock and Pine Bluff are mentioned. Then in one part one of the locals talks about the location being a few miles northwest of Little Rock which would place it somewhere around Mayflower or Conway, Arkansas. The countryside depicted in the movie looks a whole lot like southern California. Possibly one reason the name Progress was chosen was not only to cater to the stereotype at the time of Arkansas as a backward hillbilly state but also because the "Natural State's" slogan in those days was "Land of Opportunity." Being a native Arkansawer (Arkansan), I was pleased to see a fellow Arkansan, Arthur Hunnicutt, and someone from Missouri, Edgar Buchanan, in the cast. Hunnicutt is buried in Greenwood, Arkansas, near Fort Smith. He was a wonderful character actor and added authenticity to the film.

"She Couldn't Say No" teamed Jean Simmons and Robert Mitchum once more and the pairing works fairly well, not as good as Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer but better than some of the other female partners assigned him over the years. Both Simmons and Mitchum were top of the line Thespians and much under appreciated, even today. The title is weak and keeps many from watching a somewhat clever and entertaining flick.

I agree with one of the IMDb reviewers that not enough time is spent by director Lloyd Bacon developing the theme of media sensationalism once the press gets word that an anonymous donor has given the 200 residents of Progress money (the exact amount is not revealed but it was obviously a large sum). There's an old W.C. Fields movie "If I Had A Million" and an early TV series "The Millionaire" that dealt with how a million dollars given to strangers would change their lives and rather than making their dreams come true would usually alter their dreams in negative ways. So there was much potential in the basic theme of "She Couldn't Say No" that was never realized.

The idyllic sporting life lived by the country doctor is exploited in interesting ways, especially when trying to hook the big fish in the creek. It blends well with the romantic attachment between the country physician, Dr. Robert Sellers (Mitchum), and the high society lady with a British accent,Corby Lane (Simmons). The repartee between the two is at times humorous, especially in the beginning when Dr. Sellers thinks she's a crazy patient who may have escaped from a mental ward. Digger, a forerunner of Opie, adds a little depth to Dr. Sellers' character and tends to be an asset. All in all this Howard Hughes throwaway is a good one to catch.

SHE COULDN'T SAY NO is a fascinating entry in the canon of Robert Mitchum films; it is comedy set in a small Arkansas town in which he plays a doctor with a passion for fishing. Life proceeds in a calm unhurried manner until spoiled rich girl Korby Lane (Jean Simmons) pays an extended visit. With more money than sense, she makes every effort to make the citizens' life better by giving them presents and/or gifts of cash, as she believes she has a debt to reply to the town, for having saved her life when she was a little girl. Unfortunately she only succeeds in creating chaos. Lloyd Bacon's film (his final work in a long career) has a strong moral tone to it, suggesting quite overtly that money is the root of all evil. D. D. Beauchamp's and William Powers' screenplay has some sharp one-liners in it, allowing Mitchum to display his talent for throwaway observations (something equally evident in the interviews he gave over the years on television). The film also has some strong character-performances by Arthur Hunnicutt (as Odie, a recovering alcoholic with a penchant for non sequiturs such as "It's very Monday today, isn't it"); Wallace Ford (as a splenetic vet); and Hope Landin (as a maternal boarding-house keeper). Simmons' costumes are a continual source of attention, especially when compared with the rather dowdy attire of the citizens; it's clear she is trying her best to draw people's gazes towards her. In terms of ideology. SHE COULDN'T SAY NO is redolent of mid-Fifties attitudes towards women, suggesting that they are not "fulfilled" unless they get married and have children. Hence the ending is rather wearily predictable. But nonetheless there are some incidental pleasures along the way, not least the sequence where Mitchum brings boxes of diapers to one of his patients' houses, only to find that Korby has (anonymously) sent a huge pile already. The sight of Mitchum's face, a mixture of anger and sheer bewilderment, is a sight to behold, reminding us - if we didn't already know - of his versatility as a film actor, despite his public protestations to the contrary.