The Lady Says No

You're going to need some serious suspension of disbelief to watch this one. I mean, who would say "no" to David Niven?

Joan Caufield plays a best-selling authoress, whose claim to fame is a book that warns unsuspecting women about the greatest horror known as Man. Men are filthy, nasty beasts, and women would do well to always say "no"! David Niven works for a popular magazine, and he's assigned to do a featurette on Joan. He hates her book and her message, and as soon as they meet, they're at each other's throats-and not in a good way. But, since it is David Niven, she just might be charmed long enough to listen to what he has to say.

Yes, it's pretty silly, and enormously dated, but if you like silly and dated, you won't go wrong by renting The Lady Says No on a rainy afternoon. David Niven is absolutely adorable and charming, and since I love him anyway, it's easy to root for him in this funny 50s romp. My advice: watch the opening credits. If you start laughing during the song, you're in the right mindset to enjoy the rest of the movie. I find it hilarious.

Slight romcom set in around 1950s Carmel, California, where suave bachelor globe-trotting photographer David Niven is assigned to shoot a best-selling feminist author, who turns out to be the virginal, cool and very smartly turned out blonde Joan Caulfield.

At his first tired ploy of getting her to remove more and more clothes, she ends the shoot by walking out. Each further advance on his part is met by more rebuffs, following which she allures him into yet more humiliation. Even her dreams show attraction competing with repulsion. Restless, she starts interfering in the romances and marriages of his blue-collar friends as well. It has to end, as we know it will, with her growing up. The little girl who keeps saying no must become a woman and learn to say yes.

Good support from, among others, James Robertson Justice as her errant Irish uncle, Henry Jones as an amazingly unwarlike army sergeant and Lenore Lonergan as his battleaxe wife.

There were two things at least I enjoyed about this frivolous romantic comedy about the author of a book attacking men and her involvement with the type of man she despises most, the jaunty and catchy intro music, and the performance from the stunning Joan Caulfield, who managed to extract the maximum from an inconsistent and under-written part. A pity she didn't become a greater star than she did. By contrast her co-star David Niven appeared understandably rather uncomfortable throughout. The first half was fairly amusing, albeit dated, with the dream sequence the highlight, but the attempts at humour become increasingly feeble and finally moribund some time before the inevitable conclusion is reached.

Short on laughs, sometimes even embarrassing to watch, it makes me wonder what this film would have been like WITHOUT David Niven. His performance is so wooden and he seems so bored with the whole thing. Joan Caulfield, not a well known name, does a really good job, actually, playing the ying and yang of her character.

Niven seems TOTALLY OUT OF PLACE, a part someone like Tony Randall or Jack Lemmon could have banged out of the park (maybe it was a bit before their time...) Not a bad premise, has been stolen and used repeatedly in movie history, but it seems listless and lifeless when Niven is on screen. Oh, well.

The Lady Says No is the type of post World War II film that tackled issues the movies would not focus on. In this case, it's feminism. Beautiful Joan Caulfield (Blue Skies, The Unsuspected) was directed by her husband, Frank Ross, to play a man-hating writer of a book telling women to be cautious of a man's desires. David Niven is a photographer for a magazine who tries to do a story on her, but romance steps in...with complications. He gets embarrassed for whistling at her, she takes the heat for her book causing a marital break-up. But, ultimately, things turn around, as a sergeant reunites with his wife and writer and photographer get back together, as well.

Also in the cast are Francis Bavier (Aunt Bee-The Andy Griffith Show), James Robertson Justice, Henry Jones, Lenore Lonergan, and Peggy Malley, with Bavier and Justice as Caulfield's aunt and uncle, Jones and Lonergan as a military couple, and Malley as a friend of the military couple.

Mostly hilarious and predictable (Caulfield's dream of her fighting off jungle women to get to Niven), but stoic in some areas (Niven's lack of comic response), the film was written as a showpiece for Caulfield, who carried the movie. Wouldn't mind seeing it again. In other words, I would love to see Caulfield flaunt her style in Orry-Kelly fashions, while she defends her position of feminism, while a different actor could have been used as a comic foil, maybe Fred MacMurray. A film slightly ahead of its time.