Wise Girl

Witty, high-energy comedy with a script to die for. You'll meet more memorable characters than you can possibly remember. Ray Milland is a charming artist and free spirit who lives in Greenwich Village, taking care of his dead brother's two young daughters. Their rich, beautiful, snobbish aunt (Mariam Hopkins) goes to the Village incognito to win the little girls' affection and steal them away from Milland so they can be raised by her rich daddy. The dialogue is incredibly good, the performances are Oscar-quality, and the plot is filled with more convolutions than Einstein's gray matter. `Wise Girl' should be considered one of the great comedy classics of all time

Of all the major 30s star actresses, Miriam Hopkins ranks among the most bizarrely overlooked and underrated. Her string of excellent 30s and 40s films is quite impressive but she is often referred to as being stagy or brittle. Yet she had a great sense of humor and was memorable in several comedies, including this film, Old Acquaintance (with Bette Davis), and The Smiling Lieutenant (with Maurice Chevalier and Claudette Colbert). Hopkins was famous for her dislike of Hollywood, and the results has been a bad rep -- undeserved.

In Wise Girl she play an heiress trying to rescue the children of her dead sister from their guardian -- the sister's brother-in-law (Ray Milland), an artist who works at odd jobs. The film offers several hilarious scene such as Hopkins taking a bath is a storeroom, Hopkins joining Milland and Guinn Williams in a Greenwich Village restaurant for $3 apiece to act as "Bohemians," and Hopkins going ringside during one of Williams' fights. Milland is also excellent and very funny.

Hopkins and Milland make a great couple. The film also boasts solid support from Williams, Walter Abel, Henry Stephenson, James Finlayson, Margaret Dumont, Grace Hayle, Leonid Kinskey, and Inez Palange. The two girls are OK.

But Hopkins, drunk on a "slice of wine" and wearing a pinned-together dress that is twice her size is hilarious as she blows at stray hairs while smoking a cigarette with a long cigarette holder.... A scream.

Hollywood's version of Greenwich Village is way off of course, but the courtyard complex Milland lives in, filled with artsy types, is quite impressive. Hopkins and Milland make a grand comedy team.

Society heiress Susan Fletcher (Hopkins) and her wealthy father Simon Fletcher (Henry Stephenson) are vexed that their young nieces Joan (Betty Philson) and Katie (Marianna Strelby) are living a Bohemian lifestyle in Greenwich Village with their artist uncle John (Milland) after the death of their parents (Susan's sister and John's brother). Simon has given up trying to convince John to allow he and Susan to take care of the children and have resorted to using private detectives to catch him in either unbecoming behavior or unemployed and therefore unable to care for the children properly. Susan finally decides to take matters into her own hands and goes to Greenwich Village herself, posing as an actress, to try to gain information and/or persuade him to see reason. What she discovers however, is that she not only likes the free and artistic lifestyle John and his friends are living and that the girls are being brought up well, but that she is quickly falling in love with John. Inevitably, her true identity is discovered and she is faced with the task of convincing everyone on both sides of the custody debate who should belong with whom.

I really enjoyed this film, and found that its very short running time (70 minutes) was the perfect length to spin this simple but endearing story. Miriam Hopkins, one of the great 1930's-1940's actresses is delightful in this film. Her energy, style and wholesome beauty really lend themselves to creating an endearing character, even though you know that she's pulling a fast one on the people she quickly befriends. This is the earliest film I've seen Ray Milland in, and he was actually young and non-patrician looking. (And apparently three years younger than his co-star) His energy and carefree manner in "Wise Girl" were a refreshing change to the demeanor he affects in his usual, darker, films. Honestly, though I am usually not remotely a fan of child actors, I really enjoyed the two young girls who played Susan's nieces. They were endearingly precocious, and were really the jewels of the film. Unfortunately, I can't dig up any other films that either of them were subsequently in after this one, which is a shame since both exhibited a large amount of natural talent.

"Wise Girl" was a film that was made three years after the Hollywood Code was instated, and to some extent, this was abundantly clear by the quick, happy ending, and the pie in the sky loftiness and ease with which the characters lived. The alleged Bohemian co-op was in fact a gorgeous cul-de-sac where the artists lived for free or for trade, and everything is tied up very nicely throughout. Fortunately, this was a light enough film and the characters were charming enough to make allowances for its fluffiness and short-comings and I was able to just take "Wise Girl" for what it was; a good old-fashioned love story that was as entertaining as it was endearing. Unfortunately, films of the romantic comedy/drama genre today are considerably less intelligent and entertaining, or I wouldn't find myself continuously returning to the classics. 7/10

Miriam Hopkins shines as Susan "Susie" Fletcher, the ever-resourceful, vivacious leading lady to whom this title alludes, and Leigh Jason directs this delightful Allan Scott - Charles Norman penned Comedy from RKO-Radio Pictures, which features Marianna Strelby and Betty Philson, each in her only screen appearance, as the children quickly becoming embroidered in a bitter custody batter between their wealthy maternal grandfather, Mr. Simon Fletcher (Henry Stephenson), and their free-spirited, impoverished Bohemian paternal uncle, John O'Halloran (Ray Milland).

By morning light, Susan Fletcher returns in brilliant evening gown to her wealthy father's estate, in Fletcherville, New York, several miles north of Manhattan, from whence her Russian Prince trio of escorts, Prince Michael (Ivan Lebedeff), Prince Ivan (Rafael Storm) and Prince Leopold (Gregory Gaye), transport her, to discover 1st Detective (Richard Lane) and 2nd Detective's (Tom Kennedy) meeting Simon Fletcher, to announce that they've discovered his granddaughters abiding in Greenwich Village, after returning from Europe with their guardian uncle, John O'Halloran, who works three jobs to support them.

But when Simon tells Susan that he cannot legally take custody of his late daughter's children because her late husband has entrusted their care to his brother, for as long as John can provide for them, Susan realizes an idea without a workable plan, to move into Greenwich Village under the guise of a poor but friendly stranger, to see what she can do to help her nieces.

(It may seem uncanny that the brother-in-law wouldn't know the sister-in-law, nor the nieces their aunt nor grandfather, but Miriam Hopkins and company make this plot to work very well because who would know what to do next in a situation as difficult as this and still maintain light-hearted manners?)

Anyway, Susan packs an overnight bag, and conceals nearly $100 in cash, but making believe that she's broke and malnourished, upon arriving in Manhattan, and into the pawn shoppe of Dermot O'Neil (Alec Craig), at which John O'Halloran bargains with Flute Seller (D'Arcy Corrigan), whom Susan champions to no avail.

When Susan requests of Dermot free accommodations, she finally meets nieces Katie O'Halloran (Marianna Strelby) and Joan O'Halloran (Betty Philson), who suggest that she stay in the laundry room, offering a dough-nut, before John's disapproval of her smart attire and carefree attitude.

John's friends, Karl Stevens (Walter Abel), a drunken artist once married to an heiress whom Susan knows, and Mike Malloy (Guinn "Big Boy" Williams), a fledgling boxer, befriend "Susie" after George (Jean De Briac) returns and freely enters her quarters while she bathes. Not taking lightly to this lack of privacy, Susan confronts John from within the laundry tubs, as he plasters the ceiling above her entranceway.

But when John later discovers the money in Susie's purse, John suspects Susie of impersonating a poor person, but Susie finds out about it after hearing Katie and Joan's gossiping in French, a language which Susan understands and clears the mistrust among them.

In addition to his position at Dermot O'Neil's, John paints signs for a department store, and seconds Mike Malloy as boxing manager. Dermot tells Susie that he cannot fire John from the pawn shoppe because John owes him too much back rent, so she inadvertently gets him fired from the department store, where she takes a job as an actress in the store window, as Actor in Department Store Window (Jack Rice) makes a play for her, and John sticks up in her defense, causing Jake Kelly, Department Store Bouncer (Frank Moran) to end his employ.

At her Italian restaurant, Mama Guido (Mathilde Comont) hires John to paint a wall mural and Susie to add atmosphere, but when the three Russian Princes arrive, Susan must quickly think of a plan to send them off before they recognize her, once again, costing John his commission.

In the boxing ring, Mike's Fight Opponent (Frank Hagney) begins to get the better of Mike Malloy, and the Fight Referee (Eddie Gribbon) names the winner of the match, but this, neither, helps John O'Halloran and his financial situation.

Now, losing jobs left and right, Susie suggests that John enter a painting contest because of his talent for fine arts, but John tosses a knife at the want ads, to select a situation as a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman, during which time he demonstrates for "Fat Mother with Baby Wilbur" (Grace Hayle) until Baby Wilbur ends up missing somewhere in the apartment.

By now, Mr. Simon Fletcher has John O'Halloran right where he wants him, and arranges for a custody hearing to claim Katie and Joan. Susan, beginning to change her tune about Katie and Joan's situation, pleads with Simon to give Susan a little more time to work things through, but the ball is set into motion for John, Katie and Joan to discover Susie's true identity.

Mrs. Bell-Rivington (Margaret Dumont) testifies before Chief Judge at Custody Hearing (George Irving) of the improper conditions which John O'Halloran provides for the children, with Simon Fletcher and company on one side, and John O'Halloran and friends on the other. When Joan is asked to testify, Dr. Barry, Court Psychiatrist (Maurice Cass) claims that the children remain healthy in John's unconventional environment.

So, it is up to Susan Fletcher to turn the tables one way or the other once she decides how the better interests of each party involved ought to be served.

But when her plan to inspire John to paint for the magazine art contest seems to backfire, Susan enlists the assistance of Motorcycle Cop #1 (Edgar Dearing) and Motorcycle Cop #2 (Eddie Dunn) "to do a little murder," to frame someone to serve jail time.

Russell Hicks has a role as David Larrimore, the magazine editor, who may be able to provide a helpful solution to the situation at hand, with a little edging from that "Wise Girl" herself, Susan Fletcher.

Years later the plot device of a paternal uncle and maternal aunt in a custody battle was used in the Clark Gable/Sophia Loren classic, It Happened In Naples. Only in that it was Sophia who was the Bohemian and Clark the square. Wise Girl does not have the international setting or the color location cinematography of the later film, but Ray Milland and Miriam Hopkins do play a pair of spirited antagonists.

Miriam's father Henry Stephenson who is rich enough to spoil Miriam had cut off her sister back when she married out of her class. Now with both his daughter and son-in-law dead he'd like custody of his two granddaughters. Miriam will be his accomplice in that endeavor.

But the trick is to get them away from their uncle Ray Milland who has them. He's a struggling artist and he supports the girls with odd jobs here and there. Miriam moves into Greenwich Village incognito to be near them all and naturally as things go in these type films she falls for Milland.

Looking at the set I can see where Alfred Hitchcock got the idea for his Greenwich Village set in Rear Window. And we meet a whole lot of colorful characters there and not just through a telescope. Milland's closest friends are prizefighter Guinn Williams and aspiring actor Walter Abel who has a bit of a thirst problem. Marianna Strelby and Kim Philson play the two young girls and Margaret Dumont has a great small part as the snooty woman running the Child Welfare League.

Wise Girl may not show Miriam Hopkins at her wisest, but it's a great comedy in the screwball tradition of the Thirties. Best scene is the chaos she causes at one of Guinn Williams' prizefights. Milland has his moments as well, especially trying to unsuccessfully sell vacuum cleaners door to door. All in all a lot of laughs.