Ma chère secrétaire

One of my favorite comedies because of the character actors. Keenan Wynns very best droll efforts as the songwriting best friend and neighbor of Kirk Douglas; Florence Bates, a busybody as the owner of the apartment building where they live; Irene Ryan, the building maid who sings "Sniff, sniff where's your handkerchief; kerchoo, kerchoo, gazundheidt to you; Let yourself go and blow; Oh, let youself go and blow" Wynns latest song; Helen Walker, one of Kirks secretaries; Rudy Vallee, as Day's former boss; and Alan Mowbray as the dense detective Kirk hires to watch Day.

As in all screwball comedies, the story is just a framework for the characters to do and say their funny business. And they don't dissapoint. Douglas is a writer who has had a successful first novel and goes to a college to give a class and meets Day who is there as a student, and he hires her as his new secretary. When she arrives the next day, after quitting as Vallee's secretary, Walker goes up in the elevator with her to retrieve her belongings because she has just quit as the last secretary. It gets crazier as Wynn answers the door and receives a slap from the mother of one of the girls Kirk has just interviewed, which he immediately passes on to Kirk. Wynn spends most of his time at Kirks trying recipes which he is hilarious preparing, but no one ever dreams of eating.

More complications and silly goings on but it is all fun and is still one of my favorite videos, which I just watched again today. My rating: 8/10.

"My Dear Secretary" is an odd film, as the first and last portions of the film vary so much in quality. The first is brisk and funny--the second is very slow and completely different. It's too bad because if the film could have maintained its pace, it would be an excellent and enjoyable picture. Instead, it's just frustrating to watch.

The film begins with Laraine Day being hired as a secretary to a successful writer. She's excited by this but her excitement soon wanes as she sees that her new employer (Kirk Douglas) is a very immature and undisciplined guy. Again and again, instead of working on his book, he takes the secretary and his friend (Keenan Wynn) out gambling and on spur of the moment vacations!

Despite this portion of the film being hard to believe, it was quite funny--particularly for Wynn, who provided wonderful support. However, completely out of the blue, Day (who is rather conservative) marries Douglas--a wedding that makes absolutely no sense at all. And, as if the unlikelihood of the pairing also threw the writer, the film just languished and stopped being funny. Instead, the marriage soon begins to fizzle and Douglas' attempt to write his next great novel seems to be a bust. There's more to it than this--including Day becoming a great writer herself and a divorce--but none of it made much sense or kept my interest.

Rarely have I seen such an uneven film. I wanted to like it a lot more than I did and can say it's, at best, just an amiable time-passer and nothing more.

Where has this movie been hiding all my life? Picked it up cheaply mainly to see what a young Kirk Douglas was like, not being a particular fan of his much acclaimed later work. This is a screwball comedy that is really funny, not just because of the situations but with jokes too. I sat wide eyed through much of this barely able to believe what was being said, was indeed being said. Douglas is great and Laraine day fine but Keenan Wynn, perhaps a little influenced by Grouch Marx, is fantastic. Some really great lines and gags and only a little slapstick, mainly surrounding his attempts at domesticity. No boring passages, this is a solid romp from start to finish.

PS Just one thing, my copy is a PAL Region '0' Dynamic Entertainment release on DVD and has a poor snowy picture and a barely tolerable 'ringing' soundtrack. There seem to be various 'public domain' releases, does anyone know of a decent copy?

The stars of this movie are supposed to be Kirk Douglas and Laraine Day, but it's worth saying right off the top that the movie is worth watching primarily for Keenan Wynn's hilarious performance as Ronnie Hastings. He really is the one who makes this movie.

Ronnie is a neighbour of and assistant to author Owen Waterbury (Douglas.) After writing a best-seller, Waterbury gives a lecture to a writing class and meets Stephanie Gaylord (Day.) Waterbury offers Gaylord a job as his secretary, and she accepts, but what she didn't know is that Waterbury's secretaries don't last very long. He's a bit of a playboy type, and he and Hastings always insist on a certain "type" of secretary (ie, extremely cute) and most of them don't take very kindly to being hit on as soon as they walk through the door.

Basically, this movie deals with the evolution of the relationship between Waterbury and Day. Both play their parts very well, but, as I said, the show is stolen by Wynn right from the beginning, and it all leads up to an ending (again with Wynn as the comedic centrepiece) that I didn't see coming, particularly given what seemed to be Ronnie's taste in women.

All in all, it's good, clean entertaining comedy, with a plot that admittedly gets a little bit tired by the end, but still there's quite a few laughs here. 7/10

The plot has potential on paper, but can't quite hold up on screen, despite its fun, lighthearted feel.

The main characters are horribly mismatched. Although they do have a lot in common: both are far too stubborn for their own good, with nasty tempers and both need to grow up, especially him.

The movie's saving grace, though, is Ronnie, the sidekick. He's tremendous fun! :)

I wouldn't suggest making an evening of it, but if you have some spare time to kill and don't have too high of expectations, it'll give you a few laughs.