Ginger Rogers seems to have held to the classical idea that actors are supposed to create distinct characters rather than repeatedly play variations on themselves (or at least on their established acting personas). I think that her changes of hair styles, hair colors, especially her changes of voices, sometimes confuse her audience, who expect these things from character actors (say, Alec Guinness) rather than from Hollywood stars. Janie from TOM, DICK AND HARRY is about as different as it can get. The typical Rogers character had been established as a tough cookie, guarded but caring, quick-witted yet possessing a hidden vulnerability. Janie, on the other hand, is kinda dumb, too self-centered to be particularly caring or vulnerable, and probably a pretty tough kid, though we hardly get a chance to see it. She is most definitely not your typical movie heroine.
Actually, Janie is pretty much a proto-Valley Girl, right down to the muddied pronunciation and frequent porpoise-like squeals that Rogers endows her with. We have Janie's younger sister's word for it that Janie is older than she acts ('She gets more adolescent every day'). She seems to have been a telephone operator for some time, and her parents were courting "thirty years ago", so the girl must be somewhere in her twenties. Rogers was 29 at the time. I don't think she was too old for this part, she was merely playing an immature young woman.
Janie's immaturity especially comes out in her inability to say no to any marriage proposal. Those three proposals are the whole movie, and happily director Garson Kanin moves things along briskly so that tedium never really sets in. We see Tom (George Murphy) first. His relationship with Janie seems passionless (he tends to show his affection by tapping her on the shoulder rather than kissing her), and Janie seems to realize it. She receives his proposal with a distinct lack of enthusiasm, yet Tom does seem the proverbial 'good catch', being handsome, cheerful, and giving every indication of becoming a good provider. When he finally gives out an off-handed, "I love you", it's enough for her to jump on. Janie's subsequent dream quickly gives her second thoughts.
The dream sequences in TOM, DICK AND HARRY were probably more innovative than they now seem. I, at least, don't recall seeing anything like them before TD&H came out, but I have the impression that they were done to death in subsequent television sitcoms. MANY SPOILERS FOLLOW: Anyway, I believe that there's less suspense in Janie's final choice than Kanin intended. Tom, a character usually played by Ralph Bellamy, is out by virtue of being dull. True, George Murphy has a lot more bounce in his step than Ralph ever did, but love absent eroticism was not the movie way even during the heights of the Hays Code.
Burgess Meredith gives a charming performance as our proto-hippie Harry (actually, all three suitors are excellent at what they're expected to do). An auto mechanic who wants no part of the rat race of success, many things other than 'the bells' tell us that he's the one for Janie in the end. Their meeting is deftly cute in the finest screwball tradition, they quickly traverse the 'hate/love' path so often traveled by Ginger with Fred ("It's the right dress. I got the wrong fella."), and Harry is even able to bring out the latent intelligence in Janie, who listens to his musings with an open mind and even grasps his statistical arguments better than a large majority of the population would manage. And, dare I say it? Meredith and Rogers make a very nice couple.
The courtship with Dick (Alan Marshal) seems the weakest of the three psychologically, though it may be the funniest. He's amused by her, he likely would find her attractive, but the idea that someone like Dick would actually ask Janie to marry him before their first date is over lacks any plausibility whatsoever. Harry, on the other hand, has been established as rather flaky himself, and his conversations with Janie have been positively deep compared to anything shared between Dick and Jane.
The movie is funny and in some ways unusual. The acting is good and sometimes inspired (Rogers and Meredith). Two problems keep it from being better remembered. First, Janie is simply too self-centered for us to care very much what happens to her (does she ever have a thought concerning other people's feelings?). Second, who could believe that a marriage between Janie and anybody, even Harry, could last more than a couple of weeks? TOM, DICK AND HARRY isn't likely to give anyone a warm, fuzzy feeling inside, but it is good for quite a few laughs. That's more than most comedies can say.
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