Wanted To Love This, But......

I love old movies, the older the better. I'll forgive almost anything--after all, they were just learning. Someone had to be the first to make mistakes.... And this picture volunteered to make many of them. It actually had me laughing much of the time: The girl falls out of love with her fiance in a matter of minutes but spends forever telling him (could they have included take after take of explanation when they realized too late, after filming, that it made no sense to elope with a guy then decide within just hours that you don't love him at all because he doesn't want to get a job? Wouldn't she have thought of that before going on a honeymoon?) Then her new boss won't even let her cook a meal because she is too pretty and refined to be a cook? Sending her to work elsewhere only increases the likelihood she will be harmed by the unscrupulous employers he fears... His attitude was so post WWII--was this a time travel flick that was mislabeled? Cooks don't start fat and old...they have to begin taste-testing when they start out. and it's not necessarily a lower class job...some cooks train in Paris at Cordon Bleu.

But the criminal elements of the story are the real crimes here. Improbable. Unlikely. Impossible. Bizarre. But creative!

The maid who sells her ID to Mary is so laughably low class, and the police terribly incompetent, and her fiance shows up just in time to make a very unfavorable impression compared to her new employer...a rich man who worked his way up...from age 14 to 21 it appeared... And the car chase was hilariously funny! I won't spoil the ending but don't sneeze or you might miss it. Even sillier and more implausible.

I won't say the movie was bad, as a reviewer did--it was funny--without such silly mysteries that did not make any sense, how would they ever have realized the importance of writing scripts that DID make sense, and that twisted our minds a bit? Whenever we watch a car chase that takes our breath away, we ought to credit this movie in part--they once thought you could speed up the film to make the cars appear to be speeding. And create numerous bullet holes in a windshield, 2 tires, and an arm while only 3 (or 4?) shots are fired? They preceded the grassy knoll by 33 years!

I agree with the reviewer that the actors seemed more concerned with getting their lines recorded than anything else. But how many talkies do you think any of them had made before this? One--if they were lucky? How many had they even seen? One, two or three? This movie is historical...you can see that they were used to acting on the stage, projecting voices, overacting, and perhaps in silents. Movies would improve so fast--esp. technically.

I'd love to see someone make a documentary explaining the developments to clueless fans like me so we could appreciate the advances from silent films that had to be shot in midday sun to grainy static-filled films that allowed late night car chases to the tight, clear, beautiful pictures with clear sound that we took for granted just a decade later.