Pretty Baby

Six stars may be pushing it a bit in the rating of this film. "Pretty Baby" has a clever plot device - the use of the female lead, Patsy Douglas, of an actual doll wrapped in a blanket to give the impression she has a baby. This is to get her a seat on the subway system.

This is 1950, so women have been "liberated" and male chauvinism is a thing of the past. Where men formerly gave up their seats to women on buses and trollies, the liberated women now fend for seats with the men. Betsy Drake's Douglas is all for the progress that has been made, but she would have preferred that some of the old manners hadn't been thrown out with women's "liberation."

The scenes with Patsy's doll baby and a few others have some comedy. But there's nothing here to evince rollicking laughter. Edmund Gwenn is very good as the grumpy Cyrus Baxter. Some may think that Gwenn is out of his usual character (i.e., his Kris Kringle from "Miracle on 34th Street"), but Gwenn was an accomplished actor who played diverse roles - including some grouchy or distasteful characters.

The other leads, Zachary Scott as Barry Holmes and Dennis Morgan as Sam Morley, are okay up to a point. But Morley's falling for Patsy just isn't believable. There's nothing in the screenplay to even give a hint of romantic inclination on Morley's part - although there is on Patsy's part initially. All of his encounters have been with a fumbling, accident-prone Patsy. He has been upset with her and even though a plot twist leads to her keeping her job, there's nothing romantic until the very end when Morley just suddenly falls for Patsy. It actually came across as a dumb, poor ending as though the writers couldn't think of anything better.

And that gets to Betsy Drake. While she made a few comedies, she had a certain innocence yet intelligence about her persona. So, one tends to like the characters she plays. But she definitely is not a laugh-inducing comedienne. Nor does she have a personal that suggests or invites romance.

As I said, it's a stretch to give this six stars, but most people should enjoy the film and may find it somewhat amusing.

Some big minor names in this... dennis morgan, betsy drake. When patsy is promoted to work with the big boss, she tries to keep up. But he talks and dictates so fast, she can't keep up. Can her wits help her keep her job? She is clever, but is she clever enough? A chance encounter helps her get ahead! A running gag where every time morley starts spelling a name or address, he gets interrupted. About an hour in, it just gets silly and absurd, almost a three stooges scene. Some fun minor roles.. bill frawley as the detective (lucy!) and barbara billingsly (leave it to beaver!). Also frank cady as the landlord (from green acres!). It's silly but fun. Directed by bretaigne windust. Zachary scott was so good at playing the bad guy...he died young at 51. He had done a couple things with joan crawford. Check out the trivia sections on this film and for betsy drake; she and cary grant eloped at the very start of filming this movie. Another interesting connection: billingsly has a small role here, but goes on to star in leave it to beaver; windust actually directed one episode of beaver, but also died young at 54.

Thin little comedy that takes a clever premise and tries to stretch it to 90-minutes. Betsy Drake is a 40-hour a week drudge cranking out office mimeos, so we don't begrudge her a little trickery getting a seat on the crowded subway. But then, charmed by her fake baby and motherhood, mean old tycoon Edmund Gwenn decides to break character and befriend the simple working girl. Now she's stuck with keeping up the pretense lest she anger her powerful benefactor, leading to a number of semi-comedic predicaments.

Certainly, Drake and Gwenn don't lack for sparkle. The trouble is the humorous situations seldom get the comedic bounce they need. As a result, the set-ups tend to fade into the narrative itself. I suspect director Windust simply lacks the right touch for comedy, which I also suspect is harder to do than drama. Then too, the usually lively Dennis Morgan appears oddly distracted, while the usually villainous Zachary Scott shows he's not entirely out of place.

Anyway, the movie's a good glimpse into the coming consumer age through the medium of an advertising agency. And catch how sensitive the norms of the period are to unwed motherhood. In fact, take away the unwed part, and much of the story would collapse. From these standpoints, the movie's a good foreshadowing of the 1950's as a whole—though it's likely the charming Drake didn't fit the coming age of Marilyn's, Jayne's, and Mamie's. Too bad, because as the deserving working girl in this film she's darn near perfect.

Overall, the movie manages some clever set-ups, a few chuckles, but most of all, a good glimpse of its time period.

A thoroughly enjoyable piece of fluff. Nothing to deep just a well cast, well acted hour and thirty two minutes of entertainment. I just stumbled across this film and hand't checked to see what it was about or who was in it. I'm glad I didn't though; based on the description I might have skipped this little gem. Dennis Morgan and Zachary Scott were both great, as was Betsy Drake. But as usual Edmund Gwenn stole the show. I'm surprised they could find stars to work with him; he always effortlessly stole the show in anything he was in. I recently saw him in" Them"; a low budget sci-fi film and he added weight that part as well. This story starts out with a simple inadvertent dissection by young women that just wants a seat on the subway. That simple act winds up complicating her life, like she never anticipated. And others wind up draw in by their own assumptions. This is a prime example of late forties, early fifties comedy. And is a dramatic demonstration of how much the world has changed in just fifty years. People watching this film from the viewpoint of someone born after 1960 won't recognize the morals or values in this film. But this really is the way most people were like back then; for the most part. So it's a humorous character study, and another glimpse of time gone by.

All Patsy Douglas wanted was a seat on the subway. She dreamed of a better position at the advertising agency at which she worked; what she was doing was mimeographing all day long. She dreamily eyed the firm's leader, Sam Morley, & wrote trite jingles for ad campaigns in her spare time. When the Baxter Baby Food account went bad, she took the little doll from the display & carried it with her on the subway. Viola! Passengers, thinking they were helping a woman with a child, stood to let the young mother sit.

Except. One visit she happened to sit next to Cyrus Baxter himself, the crusty, hot-tempered, terminally unhappy curmudgeon who runs the baby food company. She happens to mention that the baby is named after him, Cyrus Baxter Douglas (the people at the firm named the doll "Cyrus," for obvious reasons), & the old man, not revealing his identity to her, is so flattered that she paid him that compliment that he begins to insinuate himself into her life, to help out the namesake he never knew he had.

As you may well imagine, the movie takes off from there. Morley & his partner find themselves having to promote the well-meaning, earnest Patsy to save the account. If you've seen any screwball comedies, you'll be able to anticipate when & where the plots & plans go awry. Betsy Drake, as Patsy, is a bit of a cipher - not terribly pretty, she has a sort of stagey, Laura Linney-esque way of acting. Neither Dennis Morgan or Zachary Scott as her two bosses have the stand-out traits of characters in a Preston Sturges film, though they do play off each other rather well. Edmund Gwenn as the volatile Cyrus Baxter is the movie's real treat - a sort of diminutive, flustered, uptight second cousin of Lionel Barrymore's Henry Potter. The scene between him & Betsy Drake involving Longfellow's "Hiawatha" is screamingly funny.

Most probably they couldn't make a film like this today, not without the tongue in the cheek as "The Hudsucker Proxy," & cameos in this film of soon-to-be-television-stars William Frawley & Barbara Billingsley reminded me how shows like "I Love Lucy" (where Frawley played neighbor Fred Mertz) made most screwball comedy misunderstandings & false leads into television cliche. But this movie, unrushed & quiet in its charm, unembarrassed about its lack of stars or its silliness, manages to entertain in precisely the way it was meant to. You get caught up beyond its corniness.

It's no "His Girl Friday," but probably wasn't meant to be. It has some good laughs & it's funnier than any modern comedy I've seen recently. Recommended for those who've seen all the Capra & Sturges flicks & can live with a fix that's a couple of shades below.