The Lady Says No

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.

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.

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.

Ever wonder how those Julia Roberts or Meg Ryan films will look in years to come? LIke this empty headed flick. I'm not even sure what it was about!

Niven was a photographer, Joan Caufield was some independent female who had to challenge him about a woman's independence. Huh? A photograph of her crossing her eyes and pulling a lock of her hair across her upper lip like a moustache was supposed to be embarrassing and he put it on the cover of a magazine. Really odd movie and such a waste of David Niven. I have seen him salvage other movies. Alas, this one he could not. The film was a showboat for Caufield, and she couldn't be more uninteresting if she tried.

One very amusing moment was Niven having a dream about Caufield and she is dressed like Sheena of the Jungle in a leopard print one piece swimsuit. Very bohemian! Think of Madonna of '52. The wooden gyrations are laughable to begin with, but just before this scene, we're shown an unamed African American woman who was the towel girl (!) at the restaurant and her dancing to the band's music was priceless. This chick really cut loose! I thought it was tremendously odd that this woman was uncredited and danced so much more better than Caufield, and that her scene would precede Caufield's big dance moment. Avoid this flick at all costs, unless you are an overwhelming David Niven fan, as I am. This was not one of his best.

David Niven is quite good and seems very natural in a comedic role in "The Lady Says No." But, that's about the only good thing about this movie. Niven plays Bill Shelby, a roving photographer who works for "Life" magazine. "Life" was the premier general interest magazine published in the U.S. in the 20th century. It was especially noted for its superb photography-news, feature, portrait and artistic.

Here, Shelby is taking photos in northern California. He lives out of a small house trailer that he pulls with his car. It doubles as a darkroom for developing and printing his photos. He has one specific assignment - to interview and photograph Dorinda Hatch who has written a book, the same title as this film. It turns out that Hatch, played by Joan Caulfield, is a young woman who is generally naive about the opposite sex, love and sex. She's not a psychologist or educator, but she's written a book that is a best seller.

The book is advice about something - apparently women just avoiding and having nothing to do with men. Hatch seems to have come up with the idea while growing up with her Aunt Alice and Uncle Matthew. Frances Bavier plays Aunt Alice and James Robertson Justice plays Uncle Mathew. They fought at times, but most of the time he was away from home - apparently for months or years at a time.

So, that's the setting for this comedy that is portrayed as a battle of the sexes. In the early part it has some good lines and a couple of funny scenes. But the plot quickly gets into a rut with a screenplay that runs all over the place yet goes nowhere. Hatch and Shelby have one encounter after another with various soldiers, a wife and girlfriends from nearby Fort Ord. Peggy Maley plays Midge who's a soda jerk at the Fort Ord PX. Lenore Lonergan plays Goldie who's married to Potsy (Henry Jones), an Army staff sergeant.

Hatch lives in Carmel - one can't image where her small house was located that overlooks the ocean. Shelby parks his trailer on a roadside pullout along the coast. These two are back and forth from her home, to the beach, to Shelby's trailer, to the Wharf Rat bar in Monterey, and to Fort Ord. The script by this time is devoid of any funny or clever dialog. Caulfield's frenzied movements and strange behavior are humorless. She has a dream sequence that's droll at best. She just doesn't have a spark for comedy - not in this film anyway. That could be due mostly to a read dud of a screenplay. But, even in her close-ups, she just can't emote humor.

This film quickly becomes boring - by halfway through. So, it's agonizing to watch it to the end, hoping for anything funny or something different to lift it out of the doldrums. My four stars may be generous. But Niven's character has just enough spark and humor to keep one watching. And the scenes on the Monterey coast and around the former Fort Ord add a little historic touch to boost the film a little. Still, this isn't a film worth buying a dvd or paying to rent at any cost, even for David Niven fans.

Here's the single line one might find somewhat funny. Dorinda Hatch, "Women do wear hats. Especially if they write books like mine." Bill Shelby, "Well, the way I see it, you wrote the book with your brain, and your brain is normally in your head, so let's take a look at your head, huh?" Dorinda, "That's logical."