Innocent and Hilarious Film


I find this movie delightful....I really don't see the lust angle. The Major, Ray Milland...behaves towards Su Su, Ginger...like a father to a little girl....noting inconsistancies in her presentation, but remaining innocent of her true identity. When she occasionally, and humorously, falls out of character, he manages to contain her infatuation...with his restraint. It's funny, not lustful. Su Su gets to "see" the Major, in an unguarded state, without "being seen", in her true self, by him....so if there is voyerism, it's on the part of the Minor, and it should be noted, the audience...not the Major. She fancies him...and pointedly, not any of the cadets in the academy, who she plays with....my wife and I thought, quite hilariously....and manages to turn on...that is, in their entirety, Companies A, B, C, and D!.....not to mention ME, sitting in the audience. Wilder, in his directing debut, is like Hitchcock, in the way, and to whom, he reveals the essential conceit of the plot. The Major and the entire military academy...are not in on it. In this sense, Ginger is mostly; sometimes barely; and sometimes not at all, in control of the situation. This is the fun of it...as we see through the eyes of the Major, but especially the Minor. The movie is clearly a Ginger star vehicle. It's truly a great, under-appreciated, classic, screw-ball flic.

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Very well stated. I read the movie just as you did. Very cleverly written. Just watched it for the first time, I was happy to let the entertainment flow. I didn't feel I had to suspend my disbelief much, at all. Rogers was something of a comic genius - her best talent, to my eyes. Great movie, even my 11-year old daughter & 13-year old son found it a lot of fun.

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... a bit too innocent this major :D

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