THE BACHELOR AND THE BOBBY-SOXER (RKO 1947) Warner Home Video

Irving Reis’ The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947) was an overwhelming critical and financial windfall for RKO and the recipient of an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay to Sidney Sheldon. I am not exactly sure why. Okay, the film is quaint, cute and cloying; Sheldon's screenplay about an artistic rake who finds himself the unwitting subject of a young girl’s romantic infatuations, has its moments and represents an overall 'nice' diversion for an hour or two. The picture is charming, if utterly light-weight. But outside of this, it really does not have very much to recommend it one way or the other – just another run-of-the-mill comedy of errors from a vintage in American cinema where such treasures were decidedly a dime a dozen. Nevertheless, The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer was a runaway success and briefly, to resurrect the career of an adult Shirley Temple, doing her level best to play a man-hungry teenager with raging hormones. Temple’s movie career never did recover from those heady early years when, at barely the age of 5, she ranked as superstar on par with leading ladies -six-fold her senior. Temple’s box office reign as a Fox’s most bankable commodity was as short-lived as her childhood, and after 1939 Temple, who curiously retained that pudgy-cheek and rounded visage of a seven-year-old into her teenage years, was suddenly no longer the cutest little trick in shoe leather. With very few exceptions, her career would not survive the onslaught of adulthood, although she remained, first and foremost, a fondly remembered super-star well into the 1960’s; albeit, one who could not find suitable employment in the movies.  

Mercifully, Temple’s role in The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer is supportive to two stars who definitely could still carry and command an audience. The film stars Cary Grant as a middle-age playboy and art expert, Richard Nugent. Hauled into the court of Judge Margaret Turner (Myrna Loy) on a charge, stemming from a skirmish begun inside a fashionable nightclub - the allegation and charges are eventually dropped by the defendant in the case, leaving Richard to go free. He returns to his lecture circuit at a local high school, inadvertently falling prey to the puppy love of Margaret’s much younger sister, Susan (Temple). Naturally, Susan’s latest infatuation does not sit well with her own teenage boyfriend, Jerry White (Johnny Sands). Nor does it entirely gel with Margaret – whose bias against Richard, acknowledges him as a bad influence on women in general. Noticing a gradual, if strange friendship blossoming between Margaret and Richard, Margaret’s fiancée Tommy (Rudy Vallee) – a stuffy English professor - becomes determined to keep the two at bay by forcing Richard to make good on convincing Susan that she is too young for him - or face going to jail on a charge of corrupting a minor. Initially, Margaret goes along with this – though as time passes, she begins to recognize her own feelings toward Richard, thanks to the wily matchmaking of her close confident, Beemish (Ray Collins).

The Bachelor and the Bobbysoxer is antiseptic fun.  As basic material, Sheldon’s screenplay isn’t bad, though at times it does seem to strain for its laughs – particularly during a town picnic where Richard is forced to partake in a battle of male athletic prowess with Tommy, performing a three-legged race and running an obstacle course with predictably flawed results. Grant wavers between an adopted tone of seriousness that grounds his character early on, and, an over-the-top insincerity after acquiring the teenage slang from Susan and using it to annoy Margaret’s aged father, Thaddeus (Harry Davenport). Loy does the whole standoffish thing well – perhaps too well to make her eventual romantic meltdown wholly believable. In the final analysis, The Bachelor and the Bobby-soxer is pleasant enough – though hardly exceptional entertainment. Warner Home Video’s DVD exhibits an overall pleasing visual characteristic. The B&W elements have held up remarkably well with fine details and exceptional tonality throughout. Occasionally, age related artifacts intrude but do not distract. Contrast levels are nicely realized. Blacks are deep and solid.  The audio is mono but adequate for this presentation. Extras are limited to vintage featurettes and theatrical trailer.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

3

VIDEO/AUDIO

3.5

EXTRAS

1