A Girl's Best Years

Playwright John Warburton keeps being hit with successful breach-of-promise suits. Mary Doran is a newspaper reporter who has covered all these cases, so Warburton hires her as his love secretary to record the ladies' come-ons, and censor his notes thanking them for a glorious evening. She also shows up with a dwarf dressed as a small boy to cut short any further misadventures, while everyone sings and plays romantic ballads by Val Burton and Will Jason. How far will she go to save him from himself?

MGM produced several of these overwrought and overproduced short subjects as the independent short comedy producers -- particularly Hal Roach -- shut down their increasingly unprofitable specialty. The other majors were already doing so, and the company found them not only a welcome source of "selected short subjects" to fill out their programs, but a good way to keep their staff busy and train new talent in front of and behind the camera.

This MGM short has the distinction of being released on Christmas. And, like many of MGM's shorts, the actors are all relatively unknown actors--folks that MGM tried out first in shorts to see if they'd be worth promoting to full-length films. With this one, evidently MGM was not impressed and Mary Doran and John Warburton went on to make more films--mainly in supporting roles. The only one you will recognize if you're an old movie buff is Barnett Parker who made a career for himself playing Butlers and stuffy high-class dudes, though sadly this career was cut short by an early death.

Michael Royce (Warburton) is apparently a brainless idiot. Again and again, he finds himself involved in breach of promise suits (basically, he needs to marry the woman or pay her off because he ended up engaged to her). So, he hires a smart reporter (Doran) to follow him and extricate him from troublesome situations like this. She is great at the job...but ultimately falls for the idiot!

The plot is quite cute, the actors competent and the story worth seeing...or worth expanding to full-length, making it a nice B- movie. But the singing, well, that I could have done without.

Girl's Best Years, A (1937)

** (out of 4)

Decent MGM Musical about a songwriter (John Warburton) who is constantly getting slapped with breach-of-promise suits because he can't keep his heart away from various women. He hires a reporter (Mary Doan) to keep him out of trouble but it doesn't take too long for him to fall for her. If you are constantly watching Turner Classic Movies then you know these type of shorts are shown weekly. Some of better than others and this one here isn't overly special so this here isn't one that you'd need to put at the top of your must see list. The film only contains two musical numbers and neither one is all that impressive. They were apparently co-written by Will Jason who would eventually start directing his own shorts for MGM. The entire screenplay pretty much works off the one joke that this guy can't stay away from women to fall in love with so you needlessly know where the film is going and how it's going to end. Doan is pretty good in her role as is Warburton but both fair a lot better apart from one another than when they're together.

A most slly short subject about John Warburton a songwriter who keeps geting into all kinds of legal nischief with breach of promise suits. Warburton is a fool forlove but just can't commt,.

The judge orders him to get a keeper and of course it's Mary Doran of the femalepersuasion. I think you can figure out the rest.

Warbuton sings the music badky, Doran singsit OK. Songs are hardly hit material in any event.

Not one of MGM's better shorts.