My Dear Miss Aldrich

I can watch this movie a couple of times a year. It's astonishing in the MGM ham-handedness of the production. How we are to believe that Maureen O'Sullivan, with her trans-Altantic accent, or Edna May Oliver, with her stage-British, hail from Nebraska, is beyond me. MGM's idea of screwball comedy usually involved.... well, MGM didn't do screwball, unless you count casting Joan Crawford in SUSAN AND GOD.

Yet somehow, everything about this movie works. There's the Herman Mankiewicz script, of course, and the sure comedy direction of George Seitz and Miss Oliver is always absurd. Most of all, Walter Pidgeon is perfect as the lumber-minded Ken Morley.

"My Dear Miss Aldrich" begins with the death of a rich man. He has no will and his closest heir is Martha Aldrich. Suddenly, Aldrich is a very rich and important lady--the new owner of a newspaper! However, Aldrich (Maureen O'Sullivan) isn't content to just own the paper--she wants to be a reporter. But instead of just making herself a reporter, she politely asks the editor of the paper, Ken Morley (Walter Pidgeon, to hire her and treat her like any other employee. At the same time, Aldrich is starting to fall in love with Morley. What's going to happen to the pair as well as Aldrich's aspirations to become a reporter?

This film isn't especially deep and is very slight. But it's quite enjoyable and works a bit better because the wonderful Edna May Oliver is on hand as well. Worth seeing but far from a must-see.

Just watched this and 'Meet John Doe' today on the classic movie channel, very enjoyable double feature. Add 'His Girl Friday' and you have a great newspaper trilogy of B&W comedies from the 30's. I have always thought that the late 30's was a grand time for movie making. I really liked Edna May Oliver as Mrs. Atherton, she stole every scene she was in. It is very hard to beat Herman J. Mankiewicz for snappy, funny, sharp dialog. A great escape for 75 minutes of light hearted fun.

I'm speaking of Maureen O'Sullivan of course. She is indeed very charming and beautiful, beautiful and charming.

I won't go over the plot. Everybody has already done that. Besides, writing plot summations bores me to tears.

The script is smart and funny, funny and smart. The acting is fairly standard for the 1930's. Not too heavy, not too light. But very professional. It is a comedy after all. And a very good comedy at that. Lots of laughs, lots of funny lines and situations.

A movie to make you smile. A movie to make you laugh. And that was greatly needed in the 1030's. Lots of dark times during that decade. But they sure had some wonderful movies to make them smile.

Martha Aldrich (Maureen O'Sullivan) inherits a New York newspaper when the old owner died without a will. She's a distant relative and an "old maid schoolteacher from Nebraska". She is joined by Aunt Lou. Managing editor Ken Morley (Walter Pidgeon) is dismissive of a female owner or hiring any female reporters. Martha decides to prove him wrong.

This does have the great Maureen O'Sullivan but the character does not measure up in this battle of the sexes. I don't like that she stumbles into her stories more often than not. Her character has smarts and Maureen is really good at projecting smart. I would cut back on some of the girlie frivolity and add some small town ingenuity to her character. The movie takes a very screwball physical comedy turn in the second half. It needs to setup this tone at the start. Martha can have some funny trip back in Nebraska. Also, her getup is insane although old movies sometimes had crazy outfits. This is fine but it could have been better.