Customer Reviews

The Major and the Minor [VHS]

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland star in master director Billy Wilder's 1942 screwball comedy classic THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR, a rollercoaster ride of laughs from beginning to end.

Fed up with her life in New York, Susan Applegate (Ginger Rogers) decides to go back to her small town in Iowa. Flat broke except for the $27.50 train fare which will carry her home, Susan discovers to her horror that the fares have increased. Disguising herself as a 12-year-old girl, "Su-Su" qualifies for the cheaper train fare but later gets sprung by the conductors. Seeking refuge in the first-class compartment belonging to Major Philip Kirby (Ray Milland), "Su-Su"'s kiddie act works and the near-sighted Major is completely charmed by the 'youngster'. But all hell breaks loose when Kirby invites her to stay with his fiancee's family at their house in the cadet academy! As Susan struggles to uphold her masquerade, she finds herself falling for the dashing Major...

In my opinion, THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR is Ginger Rogers' best movie aside from her Academy Award-winning triumph in "Kitty Foyle". She's an absolute riot with her performance, which runs the complete spectrum during her scenes as alter-ego "Su-Su". Ray Milland likewise follows suit with a well-judged performance as Major Kirby. The talented cast also boasts top performances from Diana Lynn and Rita Johnson. The laugh-a-minute screenplay by Billy Wilder and frequent collaborator Charles Brackett is still remarkably fresh. It was loosely-based on a story by Fanny Kilbourne entitled "Sunny Goes Home"; later turned into a play ("Connie Goes Home") by Edward Childs Carpenter.

This movie has been a long time coming to DVD. Part of Universal's Cinema Classics line, the disc will also include a special introduction from Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne.

who says this movie isn't classic? it's one of the funniest. Ginger somehow manages to be a surprisingly good little girl. (if not 12, then 14 maybe, but who cares?) she should have been nominated for an oscar at least. i don't know how this one made it past the censors untouched! on the train, when Ginger wakes because of the lightning, and Ray MIlland comes down to comfort her in her bed (he doesn't know she's really an adult) we can only imaginge what's going through her mind! and when she presse her cheek against his chest? HOLY MACKERAL! He thinks she's shaking because of the lightning, but we know better, heh heh...
Ginger is also Hilarious with all the looks and wisecracks that she gives. One of the best lines she has is, after being compared to a lightbulb (moths like lightbulbs) when Ray sees a cadet smooch her. He explains ( in another risque conversation!) that she should be careful around the boys, becase they're attracted to her. She replies: I'll try to be a well behaved lightbulb! Also watch for a little tap-dancing on her part, brings back memories of the thirties. But this movie is definately one of my favories dancing or no.

When Fernando Trueba won the oscar for Belle Epoque, he said "I do not believe in God, but I believe in Billy Wilder". It was said that a few days later phone rang at Trueba's house, he picked it up and said hello. The voice at the other side said: Hello This is God.

I have alwyas being a great fan of Mr Wilder, and this film being his first in America, just shown how wonderful director he was.

Susan Applegate after a series of misfortunes in the big city is tired, and she wants go home, but she has no money for the train ticket, so disguises as a minor she is in her way home.At the train she mets Major Kirby (Ray Milland), worried for a poor 12 years old gril travelling along he takes care of her, and takes her to the military academy where he is teaching.

From this moment on there is a funny film, with the struggles of Sue to leave the place and the difficult situation for Kirby who is attracted to a minor. Wilder makes a great script and you will be laughing all the time. This is one film that can be considered as a classic comedy with funny Robert Benchley and Ray Milland, who although not one of my favourites, certainly is perfect in this film.

But Ginger Rogers is the best. Her scene at the train when she meets Kirby is hilarious and she keeps the high level of the comedy all the time. If you think she could only dance with Fred better think it twice, because she will surprise you.

This film has raised a few eyebrows over the years, since the subject matter is of a grown man falling in love with a woman pretending to be a twelve year old girl. However, upon viewing, you will discover that this comedy presents the material in such an innocent way, you simply have to suspend disbelief and enjoy the complications that ensue. Ginger Rogers is the woman/girl who pretends to be the child to get the child's fare on the train since she is short on cash, and Ray Milland is the officer she meets on the train who takes care of her. She ends up at the military school where he works, and she causes quite a sensation amongst the young cadets. But more than that, she stirs up things in the relationship between Milland and his fiancee. Rogers does as well as anyone could playing a twelve year old in pigtails, making it almost believable that she could fool everyone. She's a lot of fun and well matched by Milland. Diana Lynn is terrific as Milland's fiancee's young sister, the only one who sees through Rogers' masquerade. There's a number of really funny moments, such as Rogers fending off the juvenile advances of the young cadets, and the hair "epidemic" of the girls at the dance (I don't want to give the funny visual away). Billy Wilder's clever dialogue is a treat to listen to (as usual) and deceptively adult. If you accept the premise of the film at face value, you'll find a number of laugh-out-loud moments and endearing characters in this comedy that is one of my favourites from the early Forties.

I absolutely adore this movie (have seen it 6 x's!) Ginger Rogers plays the part of Susan Applegate who is fed up with New York and decides she's going back to her little home town. Only Problem is the train fair has gone up and she hasn't got enough money for a ticket. she get's the idea to dress up like a child so she can buy a ticket for half fair. This is where the fun really starts! She manages to find a man who's anxious to make"2 bits" posing as her "papa" and buying the ticket for his "little girl." When little Sue-Sue get's on the train however, the conductors aren't so sure that she's actually this little girl that she's pretending to be so they keep trying to trip her up with lot's of questions but she's too smart for them. She finally thinks she's home free and decides to have herself a smoke. Pretty soon the conductors spot her smoking and she quickly takes the entire cigerette into her mouth! Well, a chase insues and she ends up in the compartment of a nice man who has one bum eye and doesn't see so well. He totally believes that she's this kid and thus treats her like one. Mean while she starts to fall for him. She ends up going with him to the military school where he teaches and she has to keep up the farce of being little Sue-Sue while she's falling more and more in-love with him. Oh, so much happens and I don't want to give it all away but I'd say get this movie 'cause it's really, sweet, cute, funny and completely delightful. Ginger Rogers is Cute as heck as Sue-Sue and glamorous and beautiful as Susan Applegate. Get this one and another one of her's I'd HIGHLY recommend if you can possibly get it is PRIMROSE PATH (another total charmer!) So forget your troubles for a little while, sit back and enjoy!

This was Billy Wilder's first effort at directing in the States, and he turned in one of the classic American comedies, full of cute and acute double-entendres and gentle whimsy -- it's a film which improves on every viewing. Ginger Rogers, who has to pretend to be 12 years old to get a cheap rail ticket home, is as good as she gets, and Ray Milland, as the Army College officer who innocently picks her up on the train and brings her back home to College, is blissfully naive and so effectively vaguely disturbed at the strange effect this '12-year-old' is having upon him and the entire College.

It stands repeated viewing -- which is why it is just begging for a top transfer to DVD. This, along with 'Some Like it Hot' and 'Sabrina Fair' are the Billy Wilder movies which should be high on the DVD transfer list, ready for us to pop into our Amazon baskets right now!

This is a super show highlighting Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland. Most of it is set in rural WWII America, but the humor starts when Rogers has to pass herself off as a 12-yr old girl to buy a reduced fair train ticket. Rogers soon finds herself as a guest in the middle of a boys military academy and all of them go ape for her. Hillarious! The best part though, in my book, is the confrontation between Rogers who's still doing the 12-yr old act and a real 13 yr old girl who guesses the truth.

While this movie is a great one, it's nowhere near as funny or memorable as a hard to find movie starring Ginger Rogers and Jimmy Stewart called "Vivacious Lady."

Still, I give this movie 5 stars all the way!

Although this film saw Billy Wilder's debut as a director, he was hardly a neophyte to American cinema. He had already established himself as one of the most brilliant screenwriters in Hollywood, being the idea half of a writing team with Charles Brackett (Brackett's primary job was to smooth Wilder's heavily Germanic English into polished Americanized prose). Between 1938 and 1941 working at Paramount, Wilder turned out a host of great scripts for such A-level directors as Ernst Lubitsch (NINOTCHKA, BLUEBEARD'S EIGHTH WIFE), Mitchell Leisen (HOLD BACK THE DAWN, ARISE MY LOVE, and MIDNIGHT), and Howard Hawks, (BALL OF FIRE). Along with Preston Sturges, he had established himself as Paramount's top comic screenwriter, and after Sturges was given a shot at directing in 1940, Wilder was rewarded for his efforts by being allowed to direct his script for THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR.

Even in contrast with Preston Sturges, Wilder was a pretty twisted fellow. Both scripts he directed and ones he wrote for others show his very odd slant on things. For instance, in BLUEBEARD'S EIGHTH WIFE, Claudette Colbert literally drives her husband (played by Gary Cooper) insane by refusing to have sex with him. HOLD BACK THE DAWN has Charles Boyer, trapped in Mexico without a way to enter the U.S., pretending to love school marm Olivia de Havilland in order to marry her to become a U.S. resident. SUNSET BOULEVARD begins with the leading character dead in a swimming pool. SOME LIKE IT HOT has a man fall in love with a man pretending to be a woman, and refusing to retract his marriage proposal even after discovering his true gender. In other words, Wilder was a tad perverse. So, it isn't surprising that his first directorial effort is about a grown woman pretending to be a young girl, and having an adult male fall in love with her. This would be an unusual situation for any other director, but it is merely typical Wilder.

After the ending of her extraordinary string of films with Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers emerged as one of the great comediennes in Hollywood. Here she gets to play an adult on the run from a man she is trying to avoid, and finding herself trapped on a train with him, dresses herself up as a small girl and pretends to be a pre-teen called Su-Su. Is she convincing? Of course not! There isn't a moment n the film when she doesn't seem to be a grown woman, but this is the kind of film where there is supposed to be a compact between the viewer and the film that they will believe the unbelievable for the pay off that will come later. Once this small point is conceded, the film and Rogers's performance are equally delightful. There are many very, very funny moments, and many great comic moments. There is some debate among the previous reviewers as to whether this is a classic or not. I'm not sure that clear criteria for a "classic" exist, but I think there are a couple of fair things to say. First, this is a thoroughly enjoyable film with a great central performance and several supporting ones. However, it is also fair to say that the film in no way represents the very best work of any of the major participants. Rogers made many much better films, as did Ray Milland and Robert Benchley, and Wilder wrote many stronger scripts and he definitely grew as a director. Whether a film can be a classic despite those limitations is of no concern to me. What is of concern that this is a marvelously entertaining film, and that is all that I think that matters.

This film is being co-released with two other films, all of them interestingly linked, MIDNIGHT and EASY LIVING. Billy Wilder wrote the screenplay for MIDNIGHT and directed and wrote THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR. Preston Sturges wrote EASY LIVING and in 1940 would direct his first film, THE GREAT MCGINTY. Mitchell Leisen directed both MIDNIGHT and EASY LIVING. During the late 1930s Leisen directed a string of great comedies, but almost all of them had been written by either Sturges or Wilder. While THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR and MIDNIGHT represented the start of major directorial careers for Wilder and Sturges, the sudden lack of quality scripts signaled the end of Mitchell Leisen career as a great director.

"Ever hear of Stevenson, Iowa? Nobody ever has. Dull. People there just walk around on two legs. Cars run on four wheels. The grass is just plain green". With this comment on her home town, pretty Susan Applegate decides that she's fed up with New York and is going back to Stevenson, green grass and all. At the train station, Sue whips out her exact fare - which she has only hoarded a year - only to find the fare has been raised. So smart Sue dresses up as a 12-year-old in order to start home on half fare............And thus begins Paramount's THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR. The Major in this case is Ray Milland, the minor is obviously Ginger. They meet on the train when Ginger, running from a suspicious conductor, breaks into the Major's compartment, says that she's feeling sick to her stomach - and soon he's telling her bedtime stories. Later, when the train is stalled, the Major wires Sue's mother thusly: "Met your daughter on train and looked out for her last night.....As we cannot proceed on account of high water, I am taking her home with me - Don't worry". Says Milland "Will that fix it"? Ginger: "It'll certainly fix Mother!!". Ginger's later mix-ups in a kid's military school make for a hilarious old-fashioned comedy.

I absolutely loved this film. Ginger Rogers does a great job playing Susan who needs to get home on the train but doesn't have enough money, so she dresses as a 12 year-old to pay the half fare. Along the way she meets Major Curby whom she falls for. This movie is a great comedy and is the best Ginger movie without Fred.