Right off the bat, I had a feeling about this 1947 movie...and I can't say that it was a good one. While an engaging enough story, the main feature of this film was to champion the feminist movement. Warning, I'm going to spoil this one for you. Set in the late 1800's, when the Suffragettes had taken to the streets demanding equality, this is the story of a young female typist...who falls in love with her boss (and vice-versa [isn't that one of the dangers?]), but refuses to give up her "right to work" as his wife. Betty Grable makes a beautiful, and sympathetic, feminist who wants both worlds--marriage and a doting husband and the "right" to work like a man. I am not a person who will argue that a woman being able to support herself is wrong, but once married in particular, it is a woman's duty to submit herself to her husband and come home (assuming she had been part of the workforce). [We'll skip the discussion of extenuating circumstances; I'm speaking in generalities here.]
Her boss is against women working...however, he's essentially blackmailed by his very feministic aunt into keeping the young lady...and then he keeps her around because he is attracted to her. By the end of the film, John has changed his tune and knuckled under to the pressure and ceded that even married women have a "right" to work outside the home. That is how the movie has it's "happy ending". Being of the persuasion that women are, in general, to remain at home (not to be ornament or bumps on a log or slaves or anything of that sort), the film left a bad taste in my mouth. I am sure however that my grandmothers, had they seen it, would have loved it--it's romantic, it's funny, it has singing, and it champions what they wanted for themselves and their daughters. My mother once told me that her aunt, who herself was in the workforce, stated that "America went [wrong] when the women went to work." So, in all, I would not recommend this film...it's sneaky, though blunt, in it's agenda. I have seen better musicals by a long shot anyway.
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RachealA Reformed Presbyterian girl who enjoys a good movie or a good book any ol' time. Archives
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