Ginger Won't Marry

Victoria Stafford (Ginger Rogers) has had three trips to the altar, all unsuccessful - she bolts the minute she is asked to say "I Do". She's about to take a fourth trip, this time to Oliver H.P. Harrington (Ron Randall).  However, fearing another botched ceremony, his father (Thurston Hall) suggests a cooling off period before the vows are exchanged. After a month in her sculpting studio, far from her family and fiance, Vicki decides she will marry Oliver. But when she arrives in New York City, she finds an American Indian (Cornell Wilde) in her upper berth, saying It Had to be You (1947).
 
This is a remarkably silly movie, with few redeeming values; with a cast headed by Ginger Rogers and Cornell Wilde, one expects better. Unfortunately, the script is weak (and at this point in history, rather offensive), and the acting is overdone.

When Ginger Rogers did Tom, Dick, and Harry (1941), she presented the character with a high-pitched voice; she would do something similar when she appeared in The Major and the Minor (1942). The little-girl voice was perfect (albeit a tad over-young) for the allegedly 12-year old Susu Applegate. She does it again here, and all it accomplishes is to let us know Vicki is a moron. She shouldn't be - she's a talented sculptress with confidence in her abilities. Her inability to commit to a man, except to someone she met when she was 10 is odd. But Ms. Rogers makes her into a nincompoop, who vibrates through the picture with no apparent focus, leaving the audience with no focal point as well. Ms. Rogers allegedly liked the role (TCM article), though one wonders why.

Cornel Wilde is usually an enjoyable actor, but he is out of his element in this movie. When he plays the native-garbed George McKesson, he is goggled-eyed and ridiculous - if his eyes got any wider, they would pop out of their sockets.  When enacting fireman Johnny Blaine, he is the exact opposite - almost flat in his portrayal of a man allegedly in love.

Spring Byington only gets to flutter helplessly as Vicki's mother Mrs. Stafford.  The events whirl around her and she is incapable of understanding ANYTHING about her daughter. It's a real shame to waste her in this piece of nonsense.

If there is one thing that is extraordinary about the film, it is the costuming. Jean Louis designs four spectacularly gorgeous wedding gowns, as well as dresses and suits for Ms. Rogers that would make any woman proud to wear them. 

In her book A Woman's View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women 1930-1960, Jeannine Basinger comments on the wedding dresses as means of demonstrating Victoria's emotions prior to each of her weddings. Yet, in each marriage, she bolts. Ms. Bassinger believes that the film is "a case of the audience having it all. They get to ogle three gorgeous wedding gowns for the price of one. They get to see three wimpy grooms rejected. And Ginger Rogers is still intact for further plot development, free and easy and not saddled with a dreary marriage." For a film aimed at a female audience, the story may have been aimed at the many unhappily married women among them.

In April 1948, Lucille Ball and Cornell Wilde starred in a Screen Guild Theater radio version of the story (AFI Catalog).  A January 1950 Screen Directors' Playhouse show starred Joan Fontaine (subbing for an ill Ginger Rogers).

Bosley Crowther's New York Times review was scathing - he said that even his 8 year old son didn't like it. Unfortunately, we are forced to agree with him. It's not the worst film ever made, but it is a Ginger Rogers low point.  If you are a completest of Ms. Rogers work, or in the mood to see great costumes, then see it (but have a remote in hand to fast forward through some of the silliness).