Tom Dick and Harry (1941)

Silly comedy especially its dream sequences that will make you wonder how Ginger Rogers earned a Best Actress Oscar (in her film that directly preceded this one Kitty Foyle (1940)). Bo Derek must have watched this film to learn how to “act” (e.g. demurely chewing a pinkie finger in her mouth to show that her character’s “thinking”). Thank goodness Rogers redeemed herself the following year in Billy Wilder’s directorial debut The Major and the Minor (1942). Garson Kanin directed this fluff about an air-headed telephone operator (whose vocabulary consists of “swell & golly”) that gets engaged to the three titled men simultaneously: high achieving almost workaholic and unromantic car salesman Tom (George Murphy) the millionaire son of a prominent father Dick (Alan Marshal) and the only one in her class – auto mechanic Harry (Burgess Meredith) to whom she’s “sexually” attracted (bells ring when they kiss). During the dream sequences Janie (Rogers) imagines what it would be like to be married to each of the men. One wonders how Paul Jarrico received his only Best Writing – Original Screenplay Oscar nomination; his story’s conclusion is both predictable and unsatisfying despite its “twist”. Thirty year old Phil Silvers (already bald and looking much like he did more than 20 years later on television) appears twice as an annoying ice cream vendor at “Inspiration Point”; Joe Cunningham as Janie’s Pop is the only other actor appearing that had much of a career. One of Leonard Maltin’s few misses (he gives it 3 ½ stars!) it’s so dated that it will likely offend most women. Remade as a Mitchell Leisen directed Musical The Girl Most Likely (1957) with Jane Powell and Cliff Robertson among others.

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