Take Her, She's Mine

A 1963 comedy starring James Stewart & Sandra Dee. Being put through the wringer by a civic board, Stewart recounts how he ended up there when daughter Dee went to college & became the apple of many a man's eye. At first getting a musical berth at a proto-hippie coffee joint, she soon flexes her artistic muscle (evidenced by her painting canvases at home wearing a 2 piece bikini where an ogling man nearly nearly crashes his car!) prompting her & her French beau to go to France (since she's won an art scholarship). Throughout poor Stewart, a lawyer, gets a front row vista to the culture wars as he gets arrested during a college sit-in, can't get a stiff drink at the coffee bar & having Dee's Parisian female roommates attack him when he honestly asked if they were hookers. Dee gets a wedding proposal from her man w/a date to meet his parents at a masquerade party but things don't go smoothly since her man's parents are snobs. Will the wedding go off w/o a hitch? Typical of Stewart's 60's comedy output which found him more stunned at the state of the world to reflect what was going on in burgeoning youth movement of the time w/Dee cute as a button (& a fellow New Jerseyian, go Bayonne!) trying to keep her dad's sanity in check. Also starring Audrey Meadows (wasted frankly!) as Stewart's wife, Bob Denver (billed as Robert!) playing a future version of his Maynard G. Krebs persona from Dobie Gillis, Robert Morley as a fellow traveler Stewart encounters in Paree & John McGiver as the head of the board impugning Stewart's character. Interesting fact the script was based on a play written by Henry & Phoebe Ephron, writer Nora's parents, who based the daughter's character on her.

Much as I always love a Jimmy Stewart film, this is a rather lame comedy, interesting mainly for an early Jerry Goldsmith score. Sandra Dee tries hard to shake her golly Molly character she played in A Summer Place (she is named Molly here too) and Audrey Meadows does well in her perfunctory role, but the script is just too lame to engender interest.

A primary flaw in my opinion is that Stewart's character was too unlikeable. The main character of the concerned father should have been more hesitant about interfering in his daughter's college life. It would have engendered more laughs and maintained sympathy with the character. But here Stewart's character is far too aggressive and possessive to the point of irritation. His character would come across as such even more so in our more enlightened times. Yelling at his daughter, yelling at her boyfriend, calling him a punk several times in the film and otherwise meddling in what should be his daughter's "space" as they would later say (the film is from 1963 so just short of the hippie generation) hardly endears him to a modern audience, in my opinion.

In a dated film like this it's difficult to judge how flat the comedy was in 1963, but words like "virgin" would hardly gain a laugh today. Some scenes seem especially dated, such as the coffee house scene with Bob Denver as a folksinger, the fast French cars, while it's hard to imagine that a writer would attempt a laugh by having the parents listen to a record at 331/3 when it's supposed to be played at 78 or 45. Like how desperate can writers be to include something as ludicrous as that for laughs. It might have been funny when electronic music was first invented but not in 1963! Similarly lame was the scene in the dorm with the French girl students, as if having a group of students yelling in French was supposed to elicit bowls of laughter.

But any film starring Jimmy Stewart, in my view the greatest of all American film actors, including Marlon Brando, can never be a waste of time.

A naive teen provides plenty of excitement for her well intentioned Dad, who tries keeping her on an even keel. Fun for die hard fans of Jimmy Stewart, like me. Originally, a play which starred Art Carney and Elizabeth Ashley, who won a Tony for her performance.

During a three year stretch, James Stewart made three comedies--three films that just didn't seem to suit his talents all that well. The problem with MR. HOBBES TAKES A VACATION, DEAR BRIGETTE and TAKE HER SHE'S MINE is that they all try too hard to be kooky. There is no subtlety about them and Stewart essentially plays the same befuddled role three different times. While none of these films are terrible, compared to his other wonderful films, they just seem to come up very short.

TAKE HER SHE'S MINE begins with Stewart explaining to the local council about all the publicity he's recently received. So, in a long, long series of flashbacks, Stewart explains away potentially damaging news reports as just misunderstandings--all which incidentally occurred while he was following his daughter (Sandra Dee) at college because he was worried she would become a "loose woman". Again and again, he assumes she is much more of a libertine than she is, yet he ends up getting arrested on morals charges himself.

While the idea of a worrying father having trouble letting go of his daughter is a clever idea, the execution and style leaves so much to be desired. Instead of great insight into a father's worries or simply making a clever film, too ofter the film degenerates towards kookiness and cheap laughs. In many ways, this movie looks and feels much more like a sitcom minus the annoying laugh-track.

The bottom line is that Stewart was an amazing actor whose films are quite often brilliant and sublime. Sadly, not everything he made was gold and it's hard to imagine that just after making THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE, he made these silly pieces of fluff. Watchable yet dopey.

Frank and Anne Michaelson's eldest daughter Mollie is going away to college...and unfortunately she is what's known as a dish! Frank, played by James Stewart, gets himself in all sorts of trouble trying to protect his daughter, played by the lovely Sandra Dee,...he ends up in jail at a protest and in his underwear at a costume party all of which is being criticized by the board of directors where he works who are calling for his replacement.

There are some wonderful cameos...Bob Denver (of Gilligan fame) plays a coffeehouse musician who has to explain to Frank that his daughter is not stripping, and Robert Morley who plays Mr. Pope-Jones, a commiserating fellow father of daughters...who he can't seem to remember the names of!

My favorite scene was actually when Frank and Anne are having a discussion about who taught them the birds and the bees...after they receive a letter or telegram from their daughter mentioning the word virgin! Great comedy there.

"If I could start over, I'd have boys!"-Frank

Poor Frank realizes in the end...that his second daughter is also coming of age!

This was a light comedy that explores that special father daughter relationship from the father's perspective. I would recommend this to Dad's in particular and anyone looking for a light comedy.