Wise Girls

Roland Young is pretty good as the other man in this comedy about a woman who marries the plumber and causes all sorts of fuss. It's based on the stage play "Kempy" by Elliot Nugent and his father, J.C. Nugent, and stars them.

Unfortunately, director E. Mason Hopper is constrained by the immobility of the camera and everyone speaks slowly so their words can be understood, so Roland Young's comic timing has problems. It's he who has the task of speeding up the thought processes of Elliot Nugent. Marion Shilling, who usually played pieces of fluff, is stiff as a board. In fact, everyone but Young is, which pretty much explains what happened to everyone's career. The younger Nugent became a respected writer and director, but not off this. It would require top-ranked actors to make this sort of dialogue flow.

This is supposed to be the first MGM talkie issued without a silent version. Considering how much dialogue there is, it's not surprising. Alas, the dialogue is not very good.

I needed something that expressed true, non-profanity and overly banal used laughs. I didn't expect it but this movie had me on a Rodney Dangerfield type, unexpected belly laughs. True wit and timing. Loved it.

Was able to catch this Gem on a TCM airing recently and found it to be a wonderful comedy. Stopped by here to learn if the Nugent authors were related. The dramatic hyperbole is part of the comedy, not to be critiqued as poor acting, but enjoyed like reruns of Dark Shadows with all the notorious set flaws. A talkie borne out of the silents, sans bad makeup, the dialog is intentionally over expressive, but the script is heartfelt small town Americana, and the casting is wonderfully touched. My favorite is the bewildered and berated "king of his castle" Dad, besieged by 4 women in his life... Ma, the older married daughter next door, the naivete "artiste du wannabe" Kay, and the youngest budding collegian Ruth. An overall excellent run around of 30's family values with many little lessons mixed into the porridge.

Hope to find this teams other creation and be able to be similarly entertained.

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.

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. (**)