Review of The Major and the Minor (1942) by Jon C — 09 Nov 2017

Notable as the first film directed by Billy Wilder, who went on to make such classics as Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, and many others, The Major and the Minor is a late (1942) entry in the 1930s "screwball comedy" genre. The light-weight story concerns a struggling New York career woman, played by Ginger Rogers, who decides to give up the struggle and go back home to small town Iowa, but finding she lacks enough money for an adult train ticket, she disguises herself as a 12 year old to get a cheaper adult ticket (interestingly, this is reportedly something Ginger Rogers actually used to do while traveling as an impoverished vaudeville performer before she hit it big in Hollywood.) On the train trip she is rescued from some difficulties by a US army major (Ray Milland, in a very Cary Grant-like part) who takes her home for a few days to the military school where he is assigned as a teacher, resulting in various typical screw-ball comedy plot twists, leading ultimately to the expected happy ending.

The film counts, I think, as excellent light entertainment, with a clever script (co-authored by Wilder) and good performances, especially by Rogers and by humorist Robert Benchley as a Manhattan would be Lothario. Some may be interested in knowing that the military school scenes were shot at St. John's Military Academy in Delafield, Wisconsin.