L'Exubérante Smoky

De Havilland found herself obligated to do GOVERNMENT GIRL when David O. Selznick borrowed her from Warner Bros. (he lent them Ingrid Bergman) and then sold her services to RKO for one picture. She didn't like the script and it looks as though she got her revenge by overacting the title role, which would have been okay if the material itself was funny. But this lame wartime comedy about overcrowded Washington never quite gets off the ground.

Sonny Tufts does what he can with a thankless role as a bungling, naive politician who has to learn the ropes from his pretty secretary. Agnes Moorehead gets in a couple of good quips as a snobbish Washington matron and Jess Barker is likable enough in a secondary romantic lead.

James Dunne and Ann Shirley tend to overplay their roles as a couple of lovestruck newlyweds eager to find lodgings. Despite its obvious flaws, the film was a moderate success for RKO at the box-office and wartime audiences seemed to go for it. De Havilland fans aren't likely to rate this among her best comedies.

This film describes the dollar-a-year workers who virtually volunteered their time and expertise to the war effort during World War Two. Ed Browne (played by Sonny Tufts) comes in conflict with the established manners and customs in Washington, D.C. Browne's method of operation is founded in the private sector of industry which clashes with the public functions of the government. Historically, many manufacturers had little choice but to take part in the the conversion to war production. Meager profits early in the war of cost plus four percent was little incentive for enthusiasm from all of industry. Even when the profit scheme went to cost plus eight percent, most industries could do much better in peacetime consumer goods. Many yielded to the threat of government sanctions and complied. This movie, however, points to the positive aspects of individuals working for the war effort, even at the cost of personal sacrifice. The most realistic character is "Smokey" (played by Olivia de Havilland. She is dynamic and forceful, but burning government records to support her boss (with whom she is in love) seems somewhat exaggerated. All in all, it is a fairly amusing film, with the bottom line echoed in a United States Senate hearing: "Thank you, government girl."

If you're looking for laughs, this comedy may disappoint. Surprisingly, the usually restrained De Havilland over-acts egregiously, just about chewing up the scenery in the process. As Smokey, the government girl, it's like she's trying much too hard. On the other hand, the much derided Sonny Tufts comes off best in a slyly bemused performance as the can-do industrialist. At a comedy level, the movie's uneven, at best.

As a glimpse of wartime Washington, however, the movie delivers in revealing ways. Note the unusually crowded scenes in the early part. Newly arriving office workers mix with service men and women, all flocking to staff the explosion of paper work. Naturally, the sudden influx creates a room shortage, which the movie amusingly illustrates with the frustrated newly-weds. There's also the gossipy intrigue of the high-class salons and drawing rooms, where careers can be made or broken. Then there's Brown's (Tufts) tussle with red tape, while trying to get his bomber production up and running. And, of course, the year being 1943, it all ends with a patriotic flyover presaging the Allied victory to come.

Not many wartime films deal with the administrative phase of the war effort. This, I believe, is one of the few, and from that standpoint the movie remains an interesting, if rather frantic, curiosity.

For those who could never imagine Olivia de Havilland in a totally madcap comedy but would like to, I would highly recommend this movie to you!!

The story is set in Washington, D.C. in the middle of WW II, when all the hotels in town are full of important people doing business, mostly to help support the war effort. In this way, this movie is highly similar to The More the Merrier (1943) which was made in the same time period with a similar theme.

However, this movie is more about getting things done quickly rather than taking shortcuts through the housing shortage. Here, de Havilland serves as sort of an activity coordinator, trying to guide people to the right place and keep the herd of visitors moving with the least possible disruption. However, she is not ready for the likes of Ed Brown (Sonny Tufts) who is knowledgeable about manufacturing the huge number of aircraft needed quickly for the war.

Ed will do anything to make airplanes and put them into service quickly. To do this, he takes shortcuts to get through the red tape of Washington, and Elizabeth Allard (Olivia de Havilland) can do nothing but go along with him on his wild ride through the bureaucracy, always about five steps in front of any roadblock that may get in his way.

De Havilland often plays the clown to Tufts character, but is soon brought on board his madhouse tactics when she sees hundreds of new warplanes being launched and deployed, thanks to him.

In the Citadel Film Series book on The Films of Olivia DeHavilland, her winding up in Government Girl was a great illustration of how the contract players were treated at the studios. Just like baseball players in those days before the reserved clause was abolished.

As we all know Olivia had worked with David O. Selznick before and she was excited when Jack Warner who just could not see her as anything but arm candy for Errol Flynn and other of his heroic leading men optioned her off to Selznick again. Maybe she would get a part as good as Melanie Hamilton.

But Selznick called off whatever film he was going to do with her and took his option and sent DeHavilland packing to RKO where she was put in this minor league comedy Government Girl. She did the film, hating every minute of it and resolved once and for all to challenge the studio system and its control of its players. Just like Curt Flood later challenging the reserved clause in baseball.

Although she overacts outrageously in a part that someone like Jean Arthur might have been better in, DeHavilland does well in this comedy about wartime Washington, DC. My aunt was such a Government Girl during those World War II and she met her husband who was a 4-F in those years because of a history of tuberculosis. I'd like to think they had such hijinks during those years.

America was truly mobilized then and people like Sonny Tufts who were business executives were called in and gladly served on the home-front, organizing the nation's industrial and agricultural might. He appropriates her hotel room using his big-shot status on a night when Olivia was helping friend and Anne Shirley try to get in some quality honeymooning with her bridegroom James Dunn. And then of course Olivia who knows the Washington power scene inside and out finds out she's going to be Tufts's secretary. But I don't think I need tell you more.

Oddly enough DeHavilland is romanced by Tufts, Jess Barker who later married Susan Hayward and Paul Stewart. Barker is a slimy young man on the make working for a Senate Investigating Committee having to do with keeping the graft at a minimum in the war effort. Senator Harry Davenport employs him for reasons not altogether clear. In real life I doubt Senator Harry Truman employed anyone like Barker.

Through his own naiveté Tufts winds up in a jackpot before the Davenport Committee. And it takes a Government Girl like Olivia DeHavilland to bail him out.

For her legion of fans this was not Olivia's finest hour and a half on screen.