Ah si papa savait ça !

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.

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.

A good portion of 1960s comedies focused on the generation gap between straight-laced parents and their hippie children. If you like that theme, you can watch a few James Stewart flicks where he plays a harried father to teenaged girls. In Take Her, She's Mine, Sandra Dee goes off to college and he worries about her virtue. Told in funny flashbacks, we see a photograph of an outrageous end result and Jimmy narrates the setup - like getting arrested at a sit-in and he's carried out of the room by the police.

There's a hilarious theme of the movie that everyone mistakes James Stewart's character for a famous actor. When he sees Sandra off at the airport, he's chased around by autograph seekers even as he insists, "I'm not him!" Finally, he gives in and signs their papers, as the narration says, "Ever since that movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. . ." The little boys run off with a "Thanks, Mr. Stewart!" In the same vein, Robert Morley enjoys every second of his cameo performance. He dispenses advise to Jimmy, and after he leaves, he exclaims to the waiter, "Do you know who that fellow is? Henry Fonda, the American movie star! Can you ever forget him in Gone With the Wind?" I had to press pause I was laughing so hard.

The movie is dated, though, so don't expect to laugh so much during every minute. Nowadays, parents don't fly across the country to check on their kids in college, thinking a sorority party is the end of the world. But if you like this funny parenting flick, check out David Niven's version of 1968 The Impossible Years. It has exactly the same ending, and the rest of the movie follows a similar theme of two teenaged daughters driving their protective father nuts.

"Take Her, She's Mine" is a comedy film that reflects family concerns during a period of cultural change in the American scene of the early 1960s. It shows parental concern - mostly that of a dad, for his daughter who has come of age, in a time just as the counterculture was beginning. It sort of reflects the last of an age of innocence before the sexual revolution of the 1960s that followed. So, modern audiences may find this film rather silly. Yet, it's not a bad picture of the parental concern of the time, and somewhat of the foray of the more innocent of youth into the cultural turnover. This is before the onset of widespread drug use and free sex that would become a part of the scene over the next decade. That concern of parents soon became a real concern of law enforcement and the country as a whole.

Knowing something about that may help modern audiences understand a little more the premise of the plot of this film. And, then enjoy the comedy, because there is some very good comedy here. It has a pleasant mixture of humorous dialog and funny antics or situations in which the dad gets entangled. James Stewart plays that dad, Frank Michaelson. Aside from a little over-doing it in the imagination and worrying frenzy, he's very good as the fall guy. Thinking like the kids and young folks of his time, he would seem a little buffoonish. But, then, just at the right moment he becomes the dad who trusts and stands by his daughter, Mollie. Some of the student protests that Mollie gets in bear signs of the times. In one, she and others are carrying signs that read, "The Berlin wall must go."

Sandra Dee does very well as the 19-year-old Mollie Michaelson who goes off to college; and then at 20 goes off to study art in Paris. Dee was the most popular young star in the early 1960s. MGM promoted her marriage to popular singer and actor Bobby Darrin, but it wasn't to last. By the end of the decade, her star had fallen and she later succumbed to alcoholism and had medical and psychological problems. She died of kidney disease at age 62 in 2005.

Audrey Meadows plays Frank's wife, Ann Michaelson, bet her role hardly has more than an occasional line when Frank is at home in between his long-distance trips to try to straighten out or save Mollie. John McGiver is Hector G. Ivor, the vice chairman of the local California board of education, of which Frank is the chairman. No one could play a straight-faced character for comedy better than McGiver, and every time the camera closes in on him here it brings a smile if not a chuckle. And Robert Morley as Mr. Pope-Jones is his usual very funny character, although this is somewhat of a unique role, as many of his comedy personas area.

All of these characters, the funny situations that Frank gets into, and the dialog make this an entertaining and fun film to watch. Here are some favorite lines.

Hector Ivor, "Honestly, sometimes I really wonder where the papers get all this stuff they print. Can't make it all up, can they?"

Frank Michaelson, at the airport, "All right - how much over weight?" Anne Michaelson, "None." Frank, "None? With that load?" Anne, "No, you see ... " Frank, "All right, don't tell me. Don't tell me. I know there's something crooked about it, but I don't wanna hear it. Not at a time like this, anyway."

Frank Michaelson, "Holy chihuahua!"

Hector Ivor, "You'd think they'd flunk her." Frank Michaelson, "They did."

Frank Michaelson, "Now, I have to be the first to admit that I don't know very much about modern art, but I happen to be one of the outstanding authorities in the State of California on hogwash."

Frank Michaelson, "There's just one catch to it." Anne Michaelson, "What's that?" Frank, "You and I won't be able to eat her senior year."

Frank Michaelson, "Do you know what Life (magazine) means when they say protégé?" Anne Michaelson, "Wellll.." Frank, "When they say protégé, they're winking. It's their way of slipping you the dirt. When they say protégé, what they're really saying..." Anne, "Okay, okay!"

Hector Ivor, "I got into a little jam like that once." Frank Michaelson, "Hector, telling me your troubles at this point would be like complaining to Noah about a drizzle."

Frank Michaelson, "How old is the punk?" Mollie Michaelson, "He's not a punk." Frank, "All right, how old is the non-punk?"

Mr. Pope-Jones, "Waiter - do you know who that fellow looks like?" Waiter, "Pardon." Pope-Jones, "Henry Fonda. Henry Fonda, the American film star. Will you ever forget him in 'Gone with the Wind?'"

Mr. Pope-Jones, "Never try this sort of thing with a hangover."

Mr. Pope-Jones, "Your father's right, dear. There's nothing shiftier than a lover's promise."