Wise Girls

I read the other reviews and they make some valid points about quality of production and maybe a little stiff acting, but the pace was excellent, and the dialogue and story was so funny I almost peed my pants. I was laughing so hard, I had to keep pausing the movie so I could wipe the tears from my eyes and catch my breath.

JC and Eliot's comedic timing, delivery, and facial expressions were much better than I expect from a movie from 1929 (or even 2009, for that matter), and I absolutely fell in love with Marion Shilling. Anyone who loves the bawdiness of Pre-Code cinema will not be disappointed. There are sexual innuendos and double entendres that will make your jaw drop.

This is a movie I want to own because I want to see it another 20 times, but alas, no DVD as of yet.

It's not a 10 out of 10 movie, but I had to try and make up for the other reviewers low marks.

J.C. Nugent stars as a father whose life is annoying due to his grown daughters who live with him and the missus. They spend his money like he's some sort of millionaire and instead of out having lives of their own, they sponge off him. Then, one of the daughters marries a man she knew less than five minutes...and she expected to live at her parents' home with her new hubby! You wonder how long this will continue until Dad explodes...or loses his mind! I know I sure would!

While I enjoyed Nugent's realistic performances, this is his first film...at age 61! Sadly, despite doing well, he only made a few more pictures after this one and you wonder why, as he was very good and easy to like.

So it any good? Well, yes...but it's certainly a different sort of film. It's very quiet and slow-paced...but not bad. Much of the quietness is because in 1929 studios still didn't know how to use incidental music and accompaniment literally meant having an orchestra just out of camera range playing the music live! Not surprisingly, few films at the time used this klunky method. Overall, well written and entertaining...but not the sort of film most folks would choose to watch in the first place.

An early MGM talkie, and how it shows, with awkward pauses, static camera-work, and technical glitches aplenty--at least twice, the camera focuses on a doorway for a full 15 seconds, just waiting for an entrance. It's a Broadway play, a not particularly successful one, written by and starring Nugent pere et fils, who had also done it on stage. The elder Nugent is an irascible paterfamilias in suburban New Jersey, and the younger is a plumber/architect wooing and marrying his flighty daughter, all the while loving the other daughter. It's stagy and slowish, but that's part of its charm--I felt like I was really watching a vintage 1920s romantic comedy as presented on stage, more or less. It's barely opened up, with few exteriors, but the cast is game, and Roland Young, as a deservedly spurned suitor, is already a master of the form. Not worth going out of your way to see, but if it turns up on TCM, and it does sometimes, it's a diverting hour-and-change.

WISE GIRLS (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1929), directed by E. Mason Hopper, is the screen version to the 1920s theatrical play "Kempy" by and starring the father and son team of JC. Nugent and Elliott Nugent, who also appear in this early talkie adaptation. Oddly retitled as WISE GIRLS rather than using a title that bears reference to the story like SHE MARRIED A PLUMBER, WISE GIRLS can be said to be a film record of the staged play that has surprisingly survived intact decades after its initial release.

The setting is set in "Lucyville, New Jersey, sixty miles from New York and sixty two miles from Atlantic City." The story focuses on the Bence family, headed by the retired and opinionated head of the house (J.C. Nugent), his wife (Clara Blandick), and three adult daughters, Katherine (Norma Lee), Ruth (Marian Schilling) and Jane Wade (Leora Spellman), wife of real estate agent, Ben (James Donlan). Kate, a free-spirited woman whose relationship with attorney Duke Merrill (Roland Young) ended two years ago due to an argument over her published book, "Angie's Temptation," reunite again, only to have another disagreement to have Merrill part company with her once again. Kempy James (Elliott Nugent), a 20 year old plumber of Hodges Plumbing Company, is hired by Bence to fix the pipes in the kitchen. His short time at the household soon goes to a different direction. After meeting with the family, and learning that Kate is the author of the book that inspired him to become an architect, Kempy goes off with Kate across the river to get married. After returning home, it comes as a surprise to everybody that not only did Kate married the plumber instead of the proposed Merrill, but the plumber never started the job he was hired to do at $4 an hour. If that isn't enough, Ruth shows more interest in Kempy than Kate, who now wants a career on the stage, much to the dismay of her father, now nearly going out of his mind.

Not quite as well known by today's standards due to its lack marquee names and unusual title, WISE GIRLS has fortunately survived intact at 98 minutes. Virtually stage bound with few cutaways to the outside home and closeups of facial expressions, WISE GIRLS gets by on its own merits through some witty dialogue probably transferred from the stage. Elliott Nugent's performance comes as a reminder to the style enacted by actor Eddie Bracken of the 1940s. Not only does Nugent sometimes resemble Bracken at times, but speaks almost like him in certain scenes. Had WISE GIRLS or KEMPY been remade in the 1940s when Bracken was at his prime, there is no doubt that Bracken would have been a perfect fit in the role.

WISE GIRLS also plays like a situation comedy of latter television shows of the 1950s, sans laugh track, especially with an unrealistic approach of someone marrying a woman he had just met. As in many 1929 releases that aren't categorized as musicals, WISE GIRLS is all talk and no action, something that would be dull and deadening for some, or a curiosity for others. While J.C. Nugent appeared on screen in character parts during the 1930s, his son, Elliott, gave up acting where he fared better as both playwright and director for both stage and screen. Aside from Roland Young and Clara Blandick becoming better known to many due to their continued film work in future years, its vintage age and casting of mostly forgotten and now unknown stage actors may be the main reason WISE GIRLS has seldom or never been revived on television broadcasts.

With no distributions on video cassette or DVD, WISE GIRLS (not to be confused with the 1938 comedy, WISE GIRL (RKO Radio) starring Miriam Hopkins), began to surface again first on Turner Network Television in 1988, followed by limited showings even on Turner Classic Movies since 1994. (**)

I have to take my hat off to MGM. They preserved almost all of their film history including this film which could only have been a B effort in its day. It shows none of the polish that MGM gave its A list early talking efforts that same year and has no stars or director of note except Roland Young, and he was just starting out in films in 1929 after years of having been a stage actor.

J.C. Nugent (Dad, or Mr. Bence) is a retired businessman who appears to be in his mid to late 50's. He has a nice but not super elegant house, and he has two single spendthrift daughters. This is driving Dad crazy because he retired only with one hundred thousand dollars - I'm going to guess that's worth between one and two million today - and it has to last him the remainder of his life. One daughter, Ruth, appears to be level headed beyond all of the spending. Kate, however, has delusions of grandeur of making it big in the art world on top of everything else. She got her book published only because her wealthy beau secretly pulled some strings, and now she wants to tackle musical comedy. This gets on the last nerve of her beau (Roland Young as Duke Merrill) because he wants her to settle down and for them to be married, and the two quarrel.

The first person Kate meets after the quarrel is Kempy (Ed Nugent), an indigent young man who is a plumber by day and architect by night. He tells her that her book changed his life and that he always promised himself if he met the author he would marry her. Kate is angry, Kempy is easily led, and off they go to the justice of the peace. Now when Kate phones home and tells her family she is a married woman, they assume she married Duke. This is great news for Dad, since back in the 20's single girls lived at home until they married, and Duke will be a good provider. When the couple returns home and her parents see who Kate's husband really is, all tarnation - and Dad's blood pressure - break loose.

The problem is, Kate really got married to get back at Duke, Kempy got married because he is easily led and seems to be just a little afraid of Kate, and sister Ruth and Kempy are starting to find that they have much in common besides Kate. Comic complications ensue.

Shave about a half hour off of this film and it would have been a nicely paced comedy, almost a screwball comedy foreshadowing those great Jean Arthur vehicles of ten years later. Up to the time Kate gets married the film moves along nicely. After the wedding, the film drags frightfully to its conclusion so that it is real work just to stick with it to the end in spite of its many humorous scenes and situations.

As for the Archie Bunker comparison I made with "Dad" Bence in the title of this review, it mainly has to do with his attitude towards his new son-in-law and the prospect of supporting him on top of everyone else and how he takes for granted his long-suffering wife (Clara Blandick). There is no social commentary going on here other than this film taking an interesting peek into what was probably a typical middle class home in the 1920's. I'd recommend it for that "interesting peek" and from the film history angle if nothing else.