Belle mais dangereuse

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.

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.

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.

This is one of those movies that is improbable but fun, with one of the most important features (in my opinion) for a movie - it is entertaining.

Bob's pairing with Jean Simmons is almost as good as his pairing with Deborah Kerr, although the chemistry is different; perhaps more paternal on his part.

I am, admittedly, a big Mitchum fan, but I won't buy a movie just because he is in it. The other actors in this film do a fine job and help give it a little more substance than the plot would have otherwise.

If this ever comes out on dvd, I'm buying it!

She Couldn't Say No terminated the tempestuous relationship of Jean Simmons with RKO Studios and her most eccentric boss Howard Hughes. It was shot in 1953 and released in 1954. Being that it was held up for a year also made it the farewell film for Robert Mitchum on his RKO contract. Soon Hughes would unload the studio itself and before the decade was over, RKO would be out of business.

The film casts Jean Simmons as a rich heiress to an oil fortune who back when she passed through the town as a child she was the daughter of an oil wildcatter, ill and in need of an operation. The town raised the money for her and she's appreciative.

Jean should have taken her lawyer's advice and just given the town a new school or library. But she goes to town incognito to determine the individual needs and wants of everybody. That gets her in trouble, but does provide a few chuckles, no real belly laughs.

Simmons figures to make contact with the doctor who did the operation back then, but he's died and the practice has passed on to his son who is played by Robert Mitchum. He practices medicine as long as it doesn't interfere with his fishing with Jimmy Hunt.

She Couldn't Say No is set in rural Arkansas and the biggest thing the film has going for it is the casting of such people as Raymond Walburn, Wallace Ford, Edgar Buchanan, Arthur Hunnicutt, Gus Schilling, etc. You see all those in the cast and you know the film is not going to be sophisticated comedy. They are as interesting a set of rustics you will ever find in any movie and they more than the disinterested stars make She Couldn't Say No entertaining.

Mitchum and Simmons both thought lowly of this film and I'm inclined to agree.