User Reviews

I thought it was cute, the premise was good. A woman who was always in control, never impulsive or prone to following emotions; then comes along a man who follows his emotions on first hand. The opposite factor comes into play adding to the comedy. While the way they trick her into getting married is charming. Even if I wish the writer would of made it more zany screwball, and longer, like the comedies of that time. They could of really been on to something then.

While the acting was good, Rosalind Russell was a comic queen of that time and Lee Bowman does the job. All in all not that bad at all. Like I said...cute.

With hundreds of really superb Columbia movies just begging for a DVD release while they gather dust in the vaults, it's odd that Sony would resurrect a film as disappointing as She Wouldn't Say Yes (1945). True, the storyline seems to be based on a clever idea, and there's no doubt that producer Virginia Van Upp has assembled a great cast: Rosalind Russell, Adele Jergens, Percy Kilbride, Harry Davenport, Charles Winninger, Sara Haden, etc. But alas, Miss Russell's co-star is the amorphous Lee Bowman. Mr Bowman is the sort of leading man that you wish would get caught in an elevator between the 18th and 19th floor somewhere, and spend the rest of the movie there! And the writer here, alas, is producer, Virginia Van Upp. Now I'm all in favor of women getting greater opportunities in Hollywood, and Miss Van Upp certainly did a better job with Gilda (1946), but her writing here is so strained that right at the end of the movie an off-screen announcer suddenly comes on to repudiate all of Percy Kilbride's footage! I've never seen or heard anything like this happen before or since in my whole life! And in any case, Percy Kilbride's scenes are easily the best in the movie, not just because of the way they're written, but because of the winning way in which Kilbride plays them. I wish I could say the same about the rest of the cast. Bowman is a complete write-off, but everyone else tries hard – too hard in the cases of Rosalind Russell, Harry Davenport and Lewis Russell. It's super-glamorous Adele Jergens who walks away with the female acting honors. She's also far more attractively photographed and dressed than Roz, who often seems quite dowdy.

Rosalind Russell must have been tired of these films where she plays a career woman who doesn't need men, yet there is some slightly creepy guy who forces his way into her life, then she falls for him, or she marries someone out of convenience and ends up falling in love with him, or something like that. The Feminine Touch, Hired Wife, Take A Letter, Darling...the list goes on.

By this point, I'm guessing no one had quite noticed that they had bled poor Roz's typecasting dry...ah, well, better things (read: Auntie Mame) were around the corner.

Here, she's psychiatrist named Susan Lane, and *suprise* she doesn't need men. She meets Lee Bowman's character, a cartoonist and army man named Michael Kent, after he smashes a door in her face and knocks her down. He keeps following her, pretending they're married to get her a seat, sneaking into her office when she's working, getting chummy with her father and butler Albert, and eventually going so far as to marry her to him without her consent. Nice guy.

Of course, this being Hollywood, Roz does a complete 180 with twenty minutes left in the film and suddenly loves Lee Bowman, only for him to run away with one of her patients who has a hatred of men after a few unhappy coincidences(Adele Jergens), but don't worry, they get back together. On a train. How lovely (read: clichéd).

Rosalind Russell and Lee Bowman could have had great chemistry, as a couple of kisses in the film show, but unfortunately the script is so badly written that they're two hunks of oak. Roz does her usual, Bowman is written to be a creepy misogynistic stalker, Roz's father is written to be also very misogynistic. The butler should have been played by someone like Felix Bressart. Roz's secretary should have been played by someone like Zasu Pitts.

Griping aside, the set design and production values are very admirable, especially since this ain't an M-G-M production. LOVED the set for Roz's house, and the office. So much Art Deco 😻. Roz also gets a lot of nice gowns to wear, and for once she's given a flattering hairstyle and NO stupid hats. But I do like to watch for Roz's stupid hats, so that was slightly disappointing for me that there were no stupid hats. Ah, well, I'll just watch The Women again. 🙂

It's not the worst film you'll ever see from this era, but it's films like this that give the classics a bad name. There's more misogyny here than Woman Of The Year ever had, and that one's been catching flack recently. 😬

It's far from Roz's worst film, however. That would be Mourning Becomes Electra. Hands down.

Nor recommended, but I didn't hate it.

This is an exceptional comedy in that each person of the cast of nearly two dozen adds something to the humor. Thus, the supporting cast does even more to help the main stars deliver a great hilarious movie. Yet, the few reviews to the time of this writing seemed to miss much of the humor because it was dated, out of tune with the present times, or not politically correct. Too bad for them.

"She Wouldn't Say Yes" has a wonderful cast. Rosalind Russell is the over-confident psychiatrist, Dr. Susan Lane, who doesn't need a man in her life, let alone a husband. Charles Winninger is her father, also an M.D., but he would like to have grandchildren someday. Lee Bowman is a well-known syndicated cartoonist, Michael Kent. He's enroute to serve in the post-war Army overseas. Among the supporting cast who contribute much laughter are Harry Davenport as Albert, Percy Kilbride as Judge Whittaker, Adele Jergens as Allura, Sara Haden as Laura Pitts, Mabel Paige as Mrs. Whittaker, and Almira Sessions as Miss Downer.

The plot is a crazy one, and moves from a serious scenario in an Army hospital to a train ride from New York to Chicago, to the medical offices of the two doctors and more. The comedy is good throughout, but one scenario alone, toward the end of the film, makes it worth watching. The marrying judge plot has to be one of the funniest segments ever in a movie. It doesn't ruin it to describe it here, because watching it on film is so funny.

To set it up, Doc Lane (dad) and Kent are in Doc's office meeting with a local judge. They plan to trick Susan into marrying Kent. They need to convince the judge that she's unbalanced. Then they have to convince Susan that the judge is a client who is unbalanced. After Susan's secretary alerts her to something strange going on with her father, Susan goes into his office but Kent hides behind the door. Doc says, "The judge is just crazy about marrying people." And the judge says to Susan, "I wish you'd think about my marrying you." The dialog before, between and after this is hilarious.

Back in her office with Miss Pitts, Susan says, "In all my experience I've never come in contact with a mania like that." After the judge and Kent leave, Susan goes back to her father who then gives her the case. She'll go to the judge's home that night to begin therapy. So, she goes, expecting to treat his mania for marrying people. But the judge has informed his wife and their neighbor, Miss Downer – who will be witnesses, of the pending marriage of this unbalanced woman. Kent is to arrive later, just in time for the wedding. The dialog is some of the most ingenious, hilarious comedy ever written. The judge asks Susan, "Do you know why you're here?" Susan replies, "Yes, do you?" Susan gets the two women aside for a moment and says, "Your husband wanted to marry me this afternoon." Mrs. Whittaker says, "He still does." Miss Downer says, "That's what worries us." There is much, much more.

This is one over the top hilariously funny scenario in a very funny film. It was written and played in the 1940s when it was very funny. And, these decades later it is still very, very funny – and clean. I recommend it to those who have a sense of humor and who want a good laugh.

I don't know why some people think comedy has to be written, lived and acted only in the present milieu? That would make everything from the past as terrible as most of what passes as humor in recent years. Why would some people put today's restrictions on a film to strangle and stifle the genuine humor that it contained when made? A reviewer will refer to films made before "the code," as though that was a hindrance in itself to films. Then that same reviewer will try to impose a modern "code" that would restrict a film even more. Instead, should we not look for the humor as it was expressed and felt in those times past?

Who says the one or two headline stars of a film have to stand out with the best lines all the time? Who says a supporting cast can't steal the scene with occasional bursts of comedic brilliance? Who says that scripts and writers can't spread the humor around as appropriate and for the best laughs? Who says that the customs and mores of a time past can't be funny in the present -- or understood and appreciated as they were originally? Who says that the social customs that guided filmmaking in the past can't still be sources of hilarity and laughter today?

Maybe it's a sign of the times that so many people today can't laugh at themselves and the world around them. Perhaps we need to look more closely at the past when, in seriously tough and dour times, people were able to laugh at their foibles and those of others. And the movie makers were able to give them great fodder for laughter, as in this film, "She Wouldn't Say Yes." I laughed long and hard in several spots in this film. If you didn't on first viewing, watch it again. Turn off the critic and just watch the people and listen to the exchanges.

Look for the funny in a deadpan expression. Look for the hilarity in a seemingly flat response. Look for the humor in all the usual places as well. And look and watch for the laughter that lay hidden and ready to pounce from so many sharp turns or quick changes in scene of a fast and screwy script. This movie is a great howl throughout.

Minor Spoilers - This one comes five years after "His Girl Friday", my personal R.Russell role, but ten years Before she will be one of the Auntie Mames. Pretty clever script, but the pacing in the middle third of the film is strange and slow, and it has something to do with the triangle between herself (a headstrong psychiatric doctor "Susan Lane"), comic-strip writer Michael Kent (Lee Bowman) and "Allura the bombshell starlet" played by Adele Jergens. Kent claims to be madly in love with the always-confidant Doctor Lane, but gets distracted by Allura when she gets in the way. Susan resents Kent's free-wheeling ways, even though it appears her father has the same trait. Some great scenes on the train, when they are "accidentally" assigned the same train sleeper berth. But... of course this was made while the film code was in full force, and the conductors, porters, and passengers all just assumed they were married... it seemed a little more shocking to the viewer until someone says "your wife", and the truth all comes out later, of course causing a stir. The writers tackle a couple different large issues here; women's rights, free will, doing what one wants even if society frowns on it, proper conduct for un-married people. On the train, there is a character who looks and sounds JUST like Mel Blanc, but it must not be him, since he's not in the credits. The last third of the film picks up steam again when they trick Susan into getting married, which was a little far-fetched and drawn-out, but somehow they manage to convince her to go through with it. Harry Davenport saved this movie, and steals the show as the hobo turned butler. You'll recognize him as the older, wiser father-figure in about half the films made in the 1930s and 1940s. Lots of writers listed on this one, and for the most part, they did a good job; I guess I was hoping for the same magic that we saw between Russell and C Grant. Here, "Allura" upstages the others in this one, and if were director, I'd have toned down her part. Directed by Alexander Hall, who, according to Wikipedia, was dating Lucy until she met Desi, and ironically they later hired Hall to direct "Forever Darling". Fact IS stranger than fiction.

A Rosalind Russell comedy without laughs is like a Meryl Streep drama without accents. A big "huh?" and rather pointless. Once again, she's a spinster career woman (psychiatrist) disillusioned over men, even though she's successfully treated soldiers with shell shock. On her way back to Chicago from New York, she keeps on getting knocked around by soldier Lee Bowman who won't stop pestering her, and along with her physician father (Charles Winninger, taking over the role obviously because Charles Coburn was not available) tries to trap her into marriage to cure her of her phobia.

A couple of laughs do sneak in (one where Russell's secretary Sara Haden mistakenly witnesses Bowman exchanging wedding vows with Winninger!) but they seem pointless. This is another "career woman" film where the lady finds she can't live without men and has been lying to herself all along. Adele Jergens struggles as a Bolivian spitfire utilized by Russell to keep Bowman away from her with the pathetic claim that Jergens believes her kiss has killed three men.

I wish there was more of the train passenger with the Elmer Fudd voice, Mary Treen as another passenger, and Haden, quite different here than she was as "Andy Hardy's" Aunt Millie. Percy Kilbride, of all people, plays a judge (whom Bowman tries to convince Russell marries people, all illegally), with Carl Switzer as a delivery boy, and cameos by Mabel Paige and Almira Sessions, two of the great character actresses of the 1940's. The trouble here is with the predictable script that fails to succeed as comedy and misuses its talented leading lady in a role which she could play in her sleep.

I would agree that most of this movie is a bit stale, but if the entire movie had had the same energy as scenes 8 and 9 this would be remembered as a great screwball comedy. Those scenes have the perfect set-up that Bogdonovich has stated make screwballs work. That is the characters are acting normal and logical to themselves but we know what the characters don't. There are so many characters involved in these scenes but the dialog remains logical. The writing in these scenes is superb. The character progression of Dr. Lane is the major impediment to this movie. As others have said, it's not realistic that she falls in love at the end. If she had slowly thawed over the course of the movie it would have been better.

A real screwball comedy that simply doesn't work because of the silliness of the whole situation. Susan Lane, (Roz Russell) meets Lee Bowman (Kent) and he falls for her immediately. She, a psychiatrist, is true to her profession. She acts as if she is above everyone.

What makes this film a stinker is the idea that when the judge, aided by her father, wants to marry Susan, she thinks he literally wants to marry her. You can only go so far with this routine and they go way overboard. There are one or two good moments, especially by butler Harry Davenport, who gives his philosophy about life. Lee Bowman is perfect for the part of Mr. Kent, but the writing here is contrived.

Does the film really end with a dream sequence or what?

I'm a big Rosalind Russell fan and have seen most of her films, but this is the weakest. Lee Bowman is a decent actor, but the character he plays is an annoying, intrusive stalker who should have been served with a restraining order before the half-way point in the movie. After nearly an hour and a half of forcefully rejecting his irritating harassment, Russell suddenly turns one hundred and eighty degrees and is in love. It makes no sense. This was an unfunny, uninvolving waste of talent, film, studio space, electricity, you name it, that even the great Miss Russell couldn't save. She must have really needed money at the time.