The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer

Plot synopsis:
Margaret Turner (Myrna Loy) and Susan Turner (Shirley Temple) are sisters who live together. Susan is an intelligent 17-year-old high-school student with a habit of forming short-lived interests after hearing the regular guest lectures at the school. Margaret is a judge, and Susan's guardian.
Richard Nugent (Cary Grant), a handsome and sophisticated artist, is a defendant in Margaret's courtroom, charged by ADA Tommy Chamberlain (Rudy Vallee) with starting a nightclub brawl. She releases him with a warning when it becomes clear that the fight was started by two women fighting over him.
He proceeds to Susan's school, where he is the guest lecturer for the day—and as he speaks, Susan becomes infatuated with him. After the talk she finds a reason to spend time with him and suggests she model for him; that evening, she puts on a sophisticated dress and sneaks away from home and into his apartment while he is out.
Richard has no sooner discovered Susan in his apartment than Tommy and Margaret arrive to rescue her from his presumed seduction. Richard assaults Tommy and is held in jail until Matt Beemish (Ray Collins), who is the court psychiatrist and also Margaret and Susan's uncle, intervenes and explains the true situation. He recommends allowing Susan to date Richard until the infatuation burns itself out; Tommy will drop the assault charge if Richard complies.
At a high-school basketball game, Richard tries unsuccessfully to boost Susan's image of Jerry White (Johnny Sands), the boyfriend she dumped for him. Later, at a school picnic, Susan persuades Richard to enter a series of novelty races (open to adult family members), where he loses repeatedly to Tommy. But in the main event, an obstacle course, she asks Jerry to help Richard win. Because he still loves her, Jerry complies, helping him directly at one point, then colliding with Tommy so that Richard does win the event.
Meanwhile, Richard and Margaret are becoming attracted to each other, to the discomfiture of Tommy, who sees Richard as a habitual troublemaker and wants Margaret for himself. Hoping Richard will stop seeing Margaret if he no longer has to date Susan, Tommy announces he is dropping the charge. But Richard and Margaret go out to a nightclub, where they are interrupted in succession by all the other main characters as well as a former girlfriend of Richard's. They all part angrily.
Afterwards, though, Matt is able to talk sense into Susan, and she returns to Jerry. Matt finds out that Richard has decided to take a trip and is able to manipulate affairs so that Margaret will travel with him. Learning that Tommy is coming to arrest Richard on trumped-up charges, Matt forestalls him by telling police at the airport that Tommy is a mental patient with delusions of being an ADA. Richard and Margaret are happily surprised to meet each other as they approach the plane to board.

Tags: romantic, comedy

Review:
Cary Grant is my favourite actor, and Myrna Loy, best remembered for her trademark housewife equal in "The Thin Man" are two of Hollywood's brightest comics together in a pretty funny film.
Throw in teenaged seventeen year old Shirley Temple falling for a shining knight in armour/playboy/artist Cary and her Judge sister, and a fun packed comedy results.
Shirley Temple plays a high school girl Susan Turner who falls for an artist called Richard Nugent (Cary Grant).Also Susan's older sister Judge Margaret Turner starts to like this playboy artist.The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer is a good comedy which has many fine moments.The acting is brilliant, and how could you miss with this cast.Cary Grant is a man you can always count on.He could always make great performances.Myrna Loy is wonderful and so is Shirley Temple.This ex-child star celebrates her 76th birthday today, so happy birthday Shirley.
Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, and Shirley Temple all get plenty to work with, as each of their characters is pretty well-suited to their talents.
Harry Davenport and Ray Collins head up a pretty good supporting cast, and the situation builds pretty well, leading up to a complicated, entertaining set of tangle-ups.While there is nothing remarkable about it, "The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer" is the kind of pleasant silliness that takes the right touch to make it work.
The contrast between the older man and the young girl creates a lot of funny situations.To make matters worse, the sister of the young girl is a judge, who sees right through the roguish Richard Nugent and wants him to leave the girl alone, but figures that surely her sister will soon get bored with the man.Myrna Loy does wonders with her role as Margaret Turner.
In minor roles, Rudy Vallee and Ray Collins are perfectly cast.In a couple of scenes in the film we see Richard Nugent in shining armor, as both sisters take turns in imagining him her hero.
Like most romantic comedies, the premise of THE BACHELOR & THE BOBBY-SOXER really isn't on the firmest of grounds (though why watch a film if you want full-blown reality?).
She has guardianship of her younger sister Susan (Shirley Temple), a hormonal young girl who develops an instant crush on a roguish art lecturer Richard Nugent (Cary Grant) when he gives a lecture at her school.
What ensues is a delightful comedy of errors as Richard squires Susan around town, while struggling to deal with an assistant district attorney (the suitably uptight Rudy Vallee) and Susan's own ex-boyfriend Jerry (Johnny Sands) as he falls in love with Margaret (and vice versa).
Watch Cary Grant's reactions in this scene--truly a fantastic comedic performance that has, thankfully, been captured on film to the great benefit of future generations.
Temple makes Susan sweeter and more tolerable, and she definitely holds her own in the company of Grant and Loy. The only problem with the film, given its great cast and very funny script, is that the 'comedic' element triumphs at the expense of the 'romantic'.
While Loy makes an excellent straight (wo)man, it really is a shame that we didn't get to see more of her, or more of her character interacting with Grant's.All in all, great fun, great laughs, great cast.
I find it is clever without being profound, its characters are unusually believable and well-developed; and it is a light-hearted look from beginning to end at a very interesting plot question--the precocity of young people who lack categorizing definitions, life-experience and therefore the context to make prioritized value decisions; in a word, it's about the problems adults have with children who want to act as grown ups without having the means to do so successfully.
Fundamentally, the film concerns five persons--Nugent, played with charm by Cary Grant, intelligent Myrna Loy as Margaret, pretty Shirley Temple as a fast-growing Susan, her daughter, Rudy Vallee as Grant's rival, prefiguring his stuffy role in "How to Succeed in Business" and other comedies, and Lillian Randolph as long-suffering Bessie, the family's maid and confidant-adviser.
The happy ending achieved for all in this story-line is the result of the common sense shown by Loy and Grant; the 'screwball' aspect which is not a genre, but rather a way-of-handling social-mores comedy, is here made to serve a plot that involves several hard-working normative people in a situation that should never have happened but has in fact happened.
"The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer" offered Cary Grant a plum comedy role, which he obviously relished with glee.
It got him cast as a smart artist playboy paired with no nonsense judge Myrna Loy, whose younger sister, Shirley Temple, has some growing up pains to work through.
This trio, assisted by Ray Collins, Harry Davenport, and Rudy Vallee in a very funny turn, work together for some good laughs, thanks to a clever original script by Sidney Sheldon.
With: a slyly endearing Ray Collins, a bemusedly prim Myrna Loy, a pompously befuddled Rudy Vallee, and a well-deserved Oscar for writer Sidney Sheldon, along with a final scene that could not be more apt.
Makes You Laugh a Lot. The adolescent Susan Turner (Shirley Temple) is a fashionable and spoiled teenager that lives with her tough and uptight sister Margaret Turner (Myrna Loy), who is a judge.
One day, Margaret has to judge the artist Richard "Dick" Nugent (Cary Grant), who is a reckless and wolf playboy, for a fight in a nightclub and she dismiss the case.
However, be warned that especially with comedies the humor often appears dated decades later, and this surely does, too.It's not what I'd call "hilarious," but it's a pleasant film and one of the few good ones featuring Temple as a young lady.
I thought this movie was a great screwball comedy and just seeing Cary in that wild races(ex.egg race) He is just such a funny man.
Myrna Loy is a judge who sentences Cary Grant to Shirley Temple in "The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer," also starring Rudy Vallee, Johnny Sands, Ray Collins, and Veda Ann Borg.
Grant is Richard Nugent, an artist who gets into some trouble and comes before Judge Turner (Loy).
He leaves court and heads for a high school to give a lecture, only to encounter Judge Turner's 17 going on 35-year-old sister, Susan, played by Shirley Temple.
Toward the end of the film, he takes Judge Turner to dinner; before long, the entire cast is at the table talking and arguing as the waiters continually sing "Happy Birthday" to one customer after another, and a diner at another table tries to retrieve Rudy Vallee's chair for his own party - it's a great scene.
The whole scene involving the town picnic with Grant in a three legged race, a potato spoon race, a potato sack race, and finally an obstacle course is funny in and of itself because it's Cary Grant doing it.Myrna Loy in this film is Nora Charles with a career.
He's the District Attorney here, a snooty District Attorney as only Rudy Vallee can be snooty.Also giving good performances are Ray Collins and Harry Davenport as Loy and Temple's uncles, Johnny Sands as Temple's would be boy friend and the one and only Veda Ann Borg as a brassy dame as only she can be brassy.One of Cary Grant's best comedies from the Forties..
This movie is full of fun; Cary Grant and Myrna Loy should have had more comedy roles together!
A fast-paced, well-written and witty script does more than just show off the three main actors, Grant, Myrna Loy and Shirley Temple, it gives some of the funniest lines to the supporting cast.
Hard to believe that this movie, in which Shirley Temple plays a high schooler, was actually toward the tail end of her film career.
Well, anyways, Cary is forced into helping Myrna Loy with her younger sister (Shirley Temple--who is way too young to be Loy's sister).
When Shirley Temple was too old for those little girl films, she was able to play enjoyable Teenagers in some classic roles and probably her best is in this one.
She plays "Susan Turner" the sister of "Judge Turner" played by Myrna Loy. Poor Susan seems to fall in love whenever a guest speaker arrives in her high school and the very bachelor "Dick Nugent" Cary Grant ends up with her.
I enjoy watching Cary Grant may a fool of himself, he will do what it takes to make a movie funny, but the star of this movie is Myrna Loy, she was in her forties, but she look like she was only in her thirties, and still sexy.
I think anyone who like Cary Grant and the lovely Myrna Loy will love this movie..
On the face of it,the film is no more than a routine story of teenage girl falling for older man,but there is so much comically inventive incident which takes it into near classic territory.Standing above all is the eternally handsome Cary Grant,in a brilliant portrayal of comic facial expressions and dialogue;it's easy to understand why teen Shirley Temple(in easily the best of her young adult roles)fell for him.Also first class are Myrna Loy(she adds clever nuances to her slightly underwritten role),Rudy Vallee,Ray Collins and Harry Davenport;mention should be made of underrated comedy supporting actor Irving Bacon too,who gets big laughs with his sparse few lines in a bit part;others can struggle for entire movies without getting as much as a chuckle.
But Cary Grant is peerless here,as he was in most of his films.There are great moments with most of the cast in the film,but Grant produces the funniest,especially his reaction to seeing Ms Temple in his abode,and his explaination to lawyer Dan Tobin(also excellent)in a prison cell of how she got there.Many are now beginning to realise that he was(and still is)the greatest leading actor to have appeared in films;there are very few,if any,who can match his consistency in comic or dramatic roles.8 out of 10..
It never oversteps itself but things keep spinning forward merrily despite the simple storyline that has Cary being penalized by a judge (Myrna Loy) who insists that her sister (Shirley Temple) be cured of her infatuation by eventually tiring of him.
Support is good but the film belongs to the three leads.Overall this is a pretty amusing comedy but not one that stands out in my memory as being anywhere near Grant's best at this type of thing.
(The playboy angle just doesn't seem like much of a stretch.) Anyway, there are some pretty clever lines (especially the hoodoo one), and an imaginative storyline, and Shirley Temple was downright pretty when she grew up, but overall The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer isn't anything unforgettable..
A teenage girl (Shirley Temple) develops a crush on an older man (Cary Grant).
Her older sister is a judge, played by Myrna Loy. When Temple sneaks into Grant's apartment and places him in trouble with the law, her sister suggests a plea bargain where Grant has to date the teenager in order to cure her of her infatuation.
Fun movie with great performances from Grant and Loy. Temple is lots of fun too.
Myrna Loy plays Judge Margaret Turner, the guardian of her teenage sister played delightfully by Shirley Temple, in one of her few movie roles as a teenager.
Harry Davenport as Uncle Thaddeus is wonderful, and Ray Collins as Uncle Matt plays Cupid in this rather odd love triangle between Loy, Temple, and Grant.
Rebellious 17 year old bobby-soxer Susan Turner (Shirley Temple) lives with her guardian sister Judge Margaret (Myrna Loy).
Myrna was a lesser actress, albeit one that I truly like, but her performance here (driven by the script) would have lost her any man, even to her kid sister.If you like Shirley Temple and/or Cary Grant, this is a great movie.
Cary Grant gets many chances to show off his flair for physical comedy, Shirley Temple is no less grating as a young adult than she was as a child, and Myrna Loy (who I watched this for) is in the movie a lot, but never given very much to do.
Cary Grant was, and is, always worth watching, find him a great actor and really like to love many of his films.
Do like Myrna Loy, though have seen quite a number of times that could have used her much better, and wanted to see too whether the film deserved its best original screenplay Oscar.While 'The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer' is not one of the best films or roles for those involved (Grant, Temple and Loy have done better performances and been in better films, though that is in no way disparaging the film or their talents), it is more than well worth the time.
A masterpiece it may not quite be, but it was so much fun to watch, was full of charm, beautifully played and very difficult to dislike regardless of what one thinks about the story.It is a story best forgotten and just enjoy 'The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer' for everything else that it does right, for it is the film's weakest link (and actually the only real big fault).
Cary Grant and Myrna Loy are terrific together and a teenaged Shirley Temple is superb with the three of them surrounded by a wonderful supporting cast.
Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, and Shirley Temple..What a team!!!.
Rudy Vallee is very funny as Tommy, the jealous assistant D.A. Shirley Temple as Margaret's teenage sister Susan, Ray Collins as Uncle Matt (Dr. Beemish), and Harry Davenport as retired judge Thaddeus all bring much hilarity to their respective roles.
Casting Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, Shirley Temple and Rudy Vallee all in the same film sounds excellent and should've resulted in a better film than this 1947 comedy from RKO.
Rowdy playboy Grant is arrested for disturbing the peace and his court case judge (Loy) sentences him to court her teenaged sister (Temple).
Judge Margaret Turner (Myrna Loy), is alarmed when her precocious teenage daughter Susan (Shirley Temple), develops a crush on Dick Nugent (Cary Grant), a roguish art lecturer.
Shirley Temple falls for Cary Grant.
Also deserving credit are director Irving Reis and writer Sidney Sheldon.******* The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (7/24/47) Irving Reis ~ Cary Grant, Shirley Temple, Myrna Loy, Johnny Sands.
Cary Grant stars as a playboy painter who becomes the object of a crush by teenager Shirley Temple.
I did not know that Shirley Temple ever made any movies past puberty, so I watched this little film with great interest.
(Rudy Vallee) and Temple's sister...yes Myrna Loy.Grant is arrested on a very sticky charge - we are never informed precisely, but it appears to be attempted statutory rape.
For example, at least two identify Shirey Temple's character as a college student rather than a high schooler.To understand the interpersonal dynamics of the story, let's start with two of the great supporting actors in this film Rudy Vallee and Ray Collins.
The idea of the high school girl and the playboy artist dating or marrying would have been a bit scandalous in a middle class milieu like this, but it would not necessarily have seemed criminal to most folks.So now we come to the silly schoolgirl crush which Shirley Temple's character conceives with regard to the urbane, sophisticated, handsome, and slightly rakish artist played by Cary Grant.
Our teen heroine in this movie is a bit of what we would now call a "drama queen." We see this not only in her relation to the older artist, but in the way she returns to her high school beau talking about how handsome he will be in uniform (he just got his draft notice).When our psychiatrist uncle (Collins) comes up with the idea of having the artist (Grant) pay court to the bobby-soxer (Temple) till she tires of him, he is playing a double - even a triple - game.
"The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer" is one of my favorite romance comedies starring Cary Grant as professional painter Richard Nugent (the bachelor), Myrna Loy as Judge Margaret Turner, and Shirley Temple as Margaret's much younger sister Susan (the bobby-soxer), for whom Margaret is legally responsible.
Nobody but Cary Grant could play the role of Richard Nugent, a man who tries his best to be respectable and elegant but who innocently gets caught up in extraordinary situations.
Myrna Loy was perfect as the stern yet likable Judge Margaret Turner, who is very loving & protective of her younger sister and who eventually sees just what a charming man Richard is.
" Oh My Goodness Shirley Temple And Cary Grant ".
In this film, Shirley Temple is cast as Myrna Loy's younger teenage sister, and her responsibility since the death of their parents.
Myrna Loy soon discovered playing Shirley Temple's older sister wasn't easy because she had to treat her rather severely on the screen.
Clearly this film survives because of Cary Grant's charm and meticulous sense of comedic timing along with the renewed box-office magic of a beautiful teenage Shirley Temple.
Too bad, because what preceded it was sometimes pretty funny.In the end, Temple returns to her puppyishly loyal boyfriend and Grant steals Myrna Loy from the Assistant District Attorney.
But at 19-years-old in real life here, Shirley Temple is all but stretched to her breaking point playing Loy's little sis, "Susan," who is supposed to be 17.
Myrna Loy plays Shirley's much older guardian sister(42 vs.
The comedy goes awry here and as a result, the film soon goes downhill quite rapidly.Yes, there are some funny moments, especially the scene in the restaurant where the entire cast is assembled and each denounces the other.You know that the relationship between Grant and Temple can't be and that older sister Loy will fit the bill..
A dashing artist (Cary Grant) makes a bad impression on judge Myrna Loy. Her younger sister (Shirley Temple) encounters him at her school, and gets a school-girl crush on him that causes him nothing but headaches.