The Lady Pays Off

Linda Darnell is funny and charming as always but the script fails. Stephen McNally should have never been in film, let alone as a leading man. It is worth watching for Darnell fans. It is still a disappointment.

Award-winning children's teacher Linda Darnell gets drunk at Stephen McNally's gambling joint and loses $7,000 she doesn't have. She agrees to pay it off by staying with McNally's neurotic daughter, Gigi Perrau.

McNally shows a great deal of charm in this movie, which is one of those brittle post-war comedies that confuse 'cute' and funny. Douglas Sirk directs it competently, but with little sense of fun, as it becomes clear that it's not young mistress Perreau who has emotional problems, but Miss Darnell. She is a mass of contradictions, between her general dislike of people, her small salary and expensive wardrobe, and the other players seem to do their parts well enough, but with the emotional air of switching their characters as the plot calls for it. With Ann Codee, Virginia Field, and Nestor Pavia, it gives the impression that it's a movie in which everyone's motivation was to cash the paycheck.

First of all ,why was beauty Linda Darnell cast as a lonely heart demure schoolteacher ,so devoted to her work she was elected teacher-of the-year and was not interested in men (but she's wooed by a math teacher ,lost in probability problems in the casino ) and made the Times cover !Claudette Colbert ,who worked with Sirk in the thrillers " sleep my love" and "thunder on the hill" would have been a much better choice.

This is not to be considered one of Douglas Sirk's masterworks (and I'm a big fan) ,it's predictable since McNally hired Darnell to cure his beloved daughter (Gigi Perrault ,a child actor and a Sirk habituée) who does not succeed at school ; it's a melodrama masquerading as comedy but if Darnell and the sailors roar with laughter on the fishboat , the viewer does not .

Virginia Field plays the thankless part of the sacrificed woman who has done nothing wrong but displease the shrewd litte brat : she is taken to an exhausting trek and ends up bedridden with painful rashes ; she would play more or less the part of the same "wrong " woman in Sirk's "weekend with father" where she served as a foil to Patricia Neal.

In fact , whereas McNally believes he manipulates Darnell (and as the movie progresses the other way about) both are manipulated by the not-so-nice little devil whose last sentence is revealing : "I pronounce you........"

For Linda Darnell fans, of which I am one, this little comedy from Universal studios is a refreshing surprise. One of the 1940's most consistently underrated screen brunettes, due to her phenomenal beauty she was frequently placed in roles subordinate to the leading male star she was appearing with (some of the best: Henry Fonda, Rex Harrison, Richard Widmark, Tyrone Power, George Sanders, Robert Mitchum, to name a few). Yet in all these she was always far more than merely adequate, in fact, consistently good. At the time of this movie's release Miss Darnell was at the peak of her success, having just scored two back-to-back triumphs at her home studio Twentieth-Century-Fox: A Letter to Three Wives and No Way Out. Here in this film she plays an independent professional woman at a crossroads in her life who is forced by chance to reevaluate and prioritize. Miss Darnell exudes poise and self-confidence in the role, and is clearly having fun letting the true Linda shine through. It is a shame she was not given the opportunities to do more vehicles like this one, where she was absolutely front-and-center in the storyline. Catch this hard-to-find gem, and enjoy one of the cinema's loveliest ladies truly letting her hair down and having a ball!

When the film begins, Evelyn (Linda Darnell) is being recognized nationally at the Teach of the Year...and promptly flips out. Soon she's in Reno...gambling and trying life on the wild side. Her foray doesn't last very long and soon she's accumulated a huge debt to the casino and Matt Braddock (Stephen McNally) proposes a way for her to settle the debt. She'll become the teacher for Mr. Braddock's daughter and soon the daughter finds Evelyn to be the perfect potential mother! This scheme is derailed slightly when Ms. Stoddard shows up...and she has her sights set on Braddock!

This is a nice little romantic film--light, fun and with a cute kid to round out the picture. Not a great romance but just the bill for a date night movie.