Secretaria confidencial

This was much funnier than I expected it to be. I had never heard of it, but it was included in a collection of "Comedy Classics" bought cheap at a dollar store. Most of the movies were dreadful, but this was one the a few that were good.

One doesn't usually think of Kirk Douglas as funny but he is in this. Irene Ryan is, also, and her character bears little resemblance to Granny. Perhaps the funniest in the cast is Keenan Wynn, who delivers some of the best lines in the movie with great flair. Some of the minor characters also very enjoyable.

The writing is also very clever and witty. Great lines abound all around.

The hitherto under-publicised film; My Dear Secretary (1949) illustrates that lead film stars were often there as a marketing tool such as in this example of Kirk Douglas, while the real talents were the character actors, such as in the case of the multi talented Keenan Wynn - see this versatile actor in his highly adept sinister role in Kind Lady (1951). In other words Wynn is the driving force of this film as opposed to the star attraction. In this film Wynn is the comedic talent to the drab cliché straight man role of Douglas'.

Douglas here plays the role of Owen Waterbury, the egotistical writer with a misogynistic womanising streak. In this respect it could be said that Douglas was playing himself. This egotistical persona was merely exacerbated for Douglas' later heroic roles such as in Spartacus (1960). Like his role in Sparticus, in My Dear Secretary,Douglas likes to show off his masculine torso when he puts his shirt on minus vest. This is somewhat of a tribute to Clarke Glable's famous vestless scene in; It Happened One Night (1934).

Douglas' role of the writer Waterbury uses the secretarial school as a licence to his womanising ways, making passes at them and auditioning them for the role of wife, of which is eventually awarded to Stephanie Gaylord (Laraine Day) who plays his bland, docile, door mat wife. That is until she comes into her own with her own award winning novel. This culminates in the roles being reversed as Waterbury becomes the subordinate partner in their marriage. In this respect the film's denouement was ahead of its time, illustrating women as not only a success in their own right, but as the matriarchal head of the family.

Though the acting parts of Douglas and Day were stereotypically bland, the supporting cast are outstanding in their respective roles. This is especially attributed to Wynn. He alone makes the film a must see. Of course, the great Irene Ryan (Mary, the housekeeper) is adept at scene stealing in her minor role.

In sum, this is a film of talented characters with bland stars.

My Dear Secretary proved one thing in the career of Kirk Douglas, comedy was not his strength.

Kirk Douglas has made a career of playing dramatic and egotistical heels, but in this case the director didn't keep him under control. I could not believe that Owen Waterbury could have anyone other than himself fall in love with him.

Plot such as it is has Laraine Day as a student becoming enthralled with writer Kirk Douglas's lecture at her night school and then going to work as his secretary. She's a budding writer also and I think you can see where the rest of this film is going.

There are some nice performances from some of the supporting players. One has to single out Keenan Wynn as Douglas's neighbor and partaker in merriment.

If My Dear Secretary was done today, Wynn's character would be openly gay instead of it just being hinted at. As it is, he camps it up to beat all the Boys in the Band.

One of my favorite comedies because of the character actors. Keenan Wynns very best droll efforts as the songwriting best friend and neighbor of Kirk Douglas; Florence Bates, a busybody as the owner of the apartment building where they live; Irene Ryan, the building maid who sings "Sniff, sniff where's your handkerchief; kerchoo, kerchoo, gazundheidt to you; Let yourself go and blow; Oh, let youself go and blow" Wynns latest song; Helen Walker, one of Kirks secretaries; Rudy Vallee, as Day's former boss; and Alan Mowbray as the dense detective Kirk hires to watch Day.

As in all screwball comedies, the story is just a framework for the characters to do and say their funny business. And they don't dissapoint. Douglas is a writer who has had a successful first novel and goes to a college to give a class and meets Day who is there as a student, and he hires her as his new secretary. When she arrives the next day, after quitting as Vallee's secretary, Walker goes up in the elevator with her to retrieve her belongings because she has just quit as the last secretary. It gets crazier as Wynn answers the door and receives a slap from the mother of one of the girls Kirk has just interviewed, which he immediately passes on to Kirk. Wynn spends most of his time at Kirks trying recipes which he is hilarious preparing, but no one ever dreams of eating.

More complications and silly goings on but it is all fun and is still one of my favorite videos, which I just watched again today. My rating: 8/10.

The stars of this movie are supposed to be Kirk Douglas and Laraine Day, but it's worth saying right off the top that the movie is worth watching primarily for Keenan Wynn's hilarious performance as Ronnie Hastings. He really is the one who makes this movie.

Ronnie is a neighbour of and assistant to author Owen Waterbury (Douglas.) After writing a best-seller, Waterbury gives a lecture to a writing class and meets Stephanie Gaylord (Day.) Waterbury offers Gaylord a job as his secretary, and she accepts, but what she didn't know is that Waterbury's secretaries don't last very long. He's a bit of a playboy type, and he and Hastings always insist on a certain "type" of secretary (ie, extremely cute) and most of them don't take very kindly to being hit on as soon as they walk through the door.

Basically, this movie deals with the evolution of the relationship between Waterbury and Day. Both play their parts very well, but, as I said, the show is stolen by Wynn right from the beginning, and it all leads up to an ending (again with Wynn as the comedic centrepiece) that I didn't see coming, particularly given what seemed to be Ronnie's taste in women.

All in all, it's good, clean entertaining comedy, with a plot that admittedly gets a little bit tired by the end, but still there's quite a few laughs here. 7/10