Ajouter une intrigue dans votre langueTwo con artists take a shopgirl under their wing, but she disrupts their marrying-for-money scheme by falling for a mathematician.Two con artists take a shopgirl under their wing, but she disrupts their marrying-for-money scheme by falling for a mathematician.Two con artists take a shopgirl under their wing, but she disrupts their marrying-for-money scheme by falling for a mathematician.
- Réalisation
- Scénario
- Casting principal
- Tod Fenwick
- (as John Shepperd)
- Newsboy
- (as Billy Benedict)
- Captain Hurley
- (as Charles Wilson)
Avis à la une
Henry Fonda also seems ill-suited for comedy. It has never been his specialty, and the few times he succeeded, it was mainly due to the talent of his occasional partner (see The Lady Eve with Barbara Stanwick). Here, neither Tierney nor Fonda can pull each other off. Laird Cregar and Spring Byington are much more entertaining in the supporting roles.
A story that had everything to be an excellent screwball comedy but, unfortunately, is nothing more than a not very inspired romantic comedy, despite the quality of the cast.
Mamoulian loved scripts that contained characters with dual identities such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Mark of Zorro, so "Rings on Her Fingers" must have appealed to him. It has Tierney, a New York salesgirl posing as an heiress, Fonda, an accountant who at first gives the impression he's a rich man, Cregar, posing as a yacht owner, and Byington, posing as Tierney's wealthy mother.
I liked this charming comedy, but I have to take issue with calling it screwball. It's played too straight. Fonda creates a wonderful character - a sincere, caring person who wants to live life in the present and not live as others - lock up their money and, in so doing, lock up their lives. His internalized approach to acting did not lend itself to comedy. Tierney is gorgeous, and a good actress, but comedy wasn't her thing. Picture the airport scenes with Irene Dunne and Cary Grant, and you get the point.
Laird Cregar is wonderfully bombastic and funny as the conniver Warren - what a loss to filmdom that he died so young; and Spring Byington does a great job as his partner.
Henry Fonda never forgave Darryl F. Zanuck for forcing him into a seven-year contract in order to do The Grapes of Wrath; though Mamoulian was a great director, I think Fonda probably felt misused here. Opposite a pro like Stanwyck, he fared in comedy much better. Tierney is lovely, though.
Good film.
The catch here is that Fonda this time isn't filthy rich at all, the boat-buying con he falls for relieves him of his hard-earned, mathematically calculated, life savings leaving him penniless, although his consolation is that he and his temptress Tierney fall hard for each other so much so that she surreptitiously tries to put things right for him. Naturally there's a reckoning to be had, which fortuitously comes about when Cregar & co. and their victim coincidentally end up under the same roof, to wit Fonda's millionaire bachelor buddy's place, who himself is set to be the next target for the travelling tricksters.
While not hysterically funny, the film makes the most of its ever more unlikely situations and is nicely played by the four main leads. Fonda and Tierney combine well together as do Cregar and Byington. There are some amusing scenes, like when the young couple plod their way around a dance floor amongst some limbs-flying jitterbuggers, Fonda's "lucky" gambling streak at the casino and earlier when Fonda is distracted by Tierney in a bathing suit as he's trying to describe the dimensions of the boat he's seeking to buy.
The ending seems a bit contrived bringing all the main characters together again with Fonda improbably stepping out of character to get his girl in the style of Cagney, but at least it all ends happily ever after as there's little doubt that even the thwarted Cregar and Byington will continue undiminished on their merry way, indeed, in my opinion, an extra finishing scene showing them hooking up with another aspirant young shop girl to do their bidding could easily have been tagged on to keep the circle unbroken.
This wasn't the best screwball comedy I've seen and certainly Sturges and Hawks executed these farces a little more sharply and amusingly but this was still an engaging, pardon the pun, film to watch.
Le saviez-vous
- AnecdotesWhen Laird Cregar asks who Gene Tierney, then serving in a shop, is, Spring Byington tartly remarks, "A shop-girl, of course. Who did you think she was--Brenda Frazier?" The very glamorous and wealthy Brenda Frazier was the most famous debutante of the 1930s.
- GaffesWhen John slides his roulette chips across the table to cash them in, other people's bets are corralled with them, yet no one complains.
- Citations
Susan Miller: Say, are you really millionaires?
[Warren and Maybelle burst into laughter]
Warren: Why?
Susan Miller: Well, there seems to be something missing.
Mrs. Maybelle Worthington: Just the millions, and they can't rule you out for a technicality.
Warren: You see, nature played a little trick on us: we should have been born with blue blood, so we have devoted our entire life to correcting this... biological error.
Susan Miller: What do you do? If you're not, what are you?
Mrs. Maybelle Worthington: Well, we're sort of an excess profits tax. To criticize us would be unamerican.
Warren: We are merely bees that take a little nectar from the flowers that have so much. And you too can have some.
- ConnexionsFeatured in AFI Life Achievement Award: A Tribute to Henry Fonda (1978)
- Bandes originalesYo, Ho, Ho, and a Bottle of Rum
(uncredited)
Traditional
Played and sung at the beginning
Meilleurs choix
- How long is Rings on Her Fingers?Alimenté par Alexa
Détails
Box-office
- Budget
- 651 000 $US (estimé)
- Durée1 heure 26 minutes
- Couleur
- Rapport de forme
- 1.37 : 1