In The 1930-1940s Golden Age Of Screwball Comedy-With A Twist-Rosalind Russell’s “She Wouldn’t Say Yes” (1945)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Laura Perkins

She Wouldn’t Say Yes, starring Rosalind Russell, Lee Bowman, directed by classic screwball comedy director Alexander Hall, 1945

Recently I reviewed another one of these Rosalind Russell- starring and Alexander Hall-directing golden age of screwball comedy films from 1942 My Sister Eileen where I made an observation based on my longtime companion and fellow reviewer Sam Lowell’s insight on “the hook.” “The hook” being the tag line you want to spin the review around. I was at something like wits’ end trying to salvage something from that screwball comedy which would be understood by today’s audiences. That is where Sam, who has had a long history of reviewing many films from the black and white film era kindled by spending many a sullen Saturday afternoon double film matinee in his youth, came to the rescue by telling me that many of these films can be profitably looked at as “slice of life” vehicles.

That is the same hook I will use to review this film She Wouldn’t Say Yes (can’t say much for the nondescript title which could mean anything from in the romance department from solicited John sex to marriage)-what a young professional woman had to go through in her profession in an age when even professional women were expected to get marriage and perform wifely and motherly duties and sent the career to the attic in the days of one breadwinner-the husband-families. Doctor Susan Lane, a rich and successful psychiatrist, Rosalind Russell’s role, is moving ahead just fine alone and single like many women today but back then a bit of an oddity even for professional women. All around her men, from her father to a fellow psychiatrist, are bothering her about marriage and motherhood to complete herself. Balderdash says she-until.      

The “until” is a cartoonist Michael Kent who is travelling west as the good Doctor is she to home and he to deployment in the Pacific as World War II nears its end. He is smitten from minute one despite a series of pratfalls which wouldn’t draw a titter from an eight year old today. She is totally non-plussed and rather annoyed by his advances (and maybe today he would face a serious case of sexual harassment charges despite his grinning ways if she pressed the issue and she very well might have) on the train all the way to Chicago. In Chi town he still won’t give up even while a legitimate blonde vixen makes a big play for him-with and without the good Doctor’s advice. Naturally, 1940s naturally, even for a strong women’s role as this is even as a foil for a screwball comedy, the good Doctor’s heart slowly melts under the barrage of pratfall attacks including a falsely arranged marriage between the two. So you know damn well what happened as the sun faded in the west. Yeah, let’s chalk this one up to a slice of life-and a lesser screwball comedy than the movie recently reviewed. And a mile behind Ms. Russell’s classic performance as Hildy in His Girl Friday with Cary Grant.