Customer Reviews

The Lady Says No

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Don't you dare believe the low star reviews!! This is an excellent movie, although somewhat outdated. It seems to be a template for many man hating movies to come. Niven and Caulfield are great comedy actors, and work well together. You won't find anything this good nowadays!! Get it!

This is another of David Niven's great films. They don't make them like these anymore!

I thought this was a really good love story! Joan Caulfield and David Niven were awesome and perfect together! A woman named Dorinda Hatch writes a book about her hatred toward men. A photographer named Bill Shelby meets to do a story on her, and he automatically falls in love with her, but the feeling isn't mutual for Dorinda. She embarasses him in front of other women by showing what would happen if a man whistles to her. After she makes a fool of him, she starts to feel sorry for him and slowly falls in love with him. Her book ruins the marriage of a couple, so Dorinda tries to help make it right. She eventually regrets that she ever wrote the book, and shows the love. If you love classic romantic comedies, you'll love THE LADY SAYS NO!!!

I love Joan Caulfield best for her performance in DEAR RUTH; she was never more appealing and lovely than in that wonderful movie. But about THE LADY SAYS NO, I'll say it plain: at best, it's only mildly entertaining. It's not the lead actors' fault, I don't think it is. Caulfield and David Niven do their best with what they're given. What they're given is a lackluster script. It results in a ho-hum screwball romantic comedy.

The shame of it is that the premise is very decent. Caulfield plays standoffish feminist author, Dorinda Hatch, who'd just published a best-selling novel concerning the "dangers" of men. Sleek photographer Bill Shelby (Niven) arrives to shoot her for the cover of Life magazine, and he's instantly smitten. But each of Bill's advances is met with a snub. Ironically, it's not until he gets discouraged and turns away that the snooty Dorinda has a change of heart. There's a strong whiff of THEODORA GOES WILD, a screwball comedy in which the prim and proper Irene Dunne goes on a bender and lets her hair down. Caulfield serves up her own spin of the good girl gone wild, as she channels her inner Dunne and tears the roof off a nightclub, sets dude against dude, starts a ruckus, wrecks a marriage. It's just that Caulfield's light touch isn't as light as Irene Dunne's. Still, it's fun watching the normally demure Caulfield play the foxy maneater.

For me, the heavyhanded "comic" sequences outweigh the good moments. The role-playing bit - in which Caulfield punishes Niven for wolf whistling as a bunch of old biddies appreciatively look on - relies on unfunny sight gags. As I understand the lesson, wolf whistling will result in one's tie getting snipped off and pie smushed onto one's face. Well, maybe if you wolf whistle at a clown. Worth watching - because it's so damn odd - is Caulfield's dream in which she's in a leopard print bikini and, in front of Niven, performs these weird gyrating motions or, as she likes to call it, dancing. The film climaxes to a tepid crescendo, with Caulfield attempting to mend the marriage she'd sabotaged. Maybe it was a sign of the times, but the big swerve is that Caulfield recants her man-hating views and opens herself to romance. THE LADY SAYS NO, when you boil it down, is pretty much a listless raspberry at feminism circa 1952. This picture is a lightweight effort, with a screenplay that's low on finesse and tired humor that half the time had me rolling my eyes. That I'm rating it 3 stars out of 5 is more because of the good will Joan Caulfield's generated from DEAR RUTH than because of her performance in this one, which is only okay. It's hard to sparkle when you're given subpar material. Why is there a DVD out on this film, while a gem like DEAR RUTH is still languishing in VHS limbo?

Bill Shelby is a handsome young photographer for Life Magazine, and is used to be able to charm the ladies. When he is assigned to shoot Dorinda Hatch, the author of a best-selling book on the dangers of men and romance, he expects to find an old woman; imagine his surprise when he finds that Dorinda is actually young and beautiful! Well, Bill likes a challenge, and he decides that he will set out to change Dorinda's mind on men. There's a lot of funny goings on in Carmel, but before all is said and done Dorinda Hatch learns to say, "Yes."

This is a fun little movie, more than a bit sexist (all women actually want to be whistled at when they walk down the street, and want come-ons from men), but fun nonetheless. David Niven is his normal suave self, but Joan Caulfield really steals the show with her wide-eyed portrayal of Dorinda Hatch, not to mention a surprisingly good dance scene. Don't take this movie seriously, but watch it for the romance and the nonsense - just watch it!

(Review of The Lady Says No starring Joan Caulfield and David Niven)

Producer Frank Ross makes his only effort at directing with this feathery comedy, a vanity piece for his wife Joan Caulfield, wherein the lovely and customarily demure actress displays a widened working range disparate from her normal personae, playing here as Dorinda Hatch, feminist author of an anti-male best-seller who becomes unsettled when a rakish photographer for Life Magazine, Bill Shelby (David Niven), attempts to woo her through a sly method of blackmail. During a picture taking session for the periodical Dorinda does some mugging designed to put the impudent Shelby in his place, but the latter turns the tables on her by using a daft face made by the writer as the proof for an upcoming Life cover, refusing to give the negative to her unless she allows him to kiss her, an act leading to romantic complications that raise doubts as to the sincerity of Dorinda's feminist beliefs. The work has a simple storyline, with some fatuous scenes of slapstick, but roles are well-performed by all members of the cast, despite a great deal of predictability in the dialogue, Caulfield earning the acting laurels as she and Niven luff toward each other in romantic folly, and there are skillful turns from Henry Jones and Lenore Lonergan as a comedic still in love, although not without conflict. The action moves briskly with nary a break and producer/director Ross has assembled top-tier technicians to showcase Caulfield, among them James Wong Howe, cinematographer and Orry-Kelly, costumer, in addition to production designer Perry Ferguson, and a terrific score is contributed by Arthur Lange to cap off this pleasant and humourous soufflé.

This movie never should have been made it's an embarassment to a great actor and the actress was absolutely horrible. I wouldn't give this movie to an enemy.