The Major and the Minor
09/16/1942 AD released
American comedy film starring Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland. It was the first American film directed by Billy Wilder.
The screenplay is credited to Wilder and Charles Brackett is "suggested by" the 1923 play Connie Goes Home by Edward Childs Carpenter, based on the 1921 Saturday Evening Post story Sunny Goes Home by Fannie Kilbourne.
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times said the Wilder-Brackett script "effervesces with neat situations and bright lines" and added, "The gentlemen have written – and Mr. Wilder has directed – a bountiful comedy-romance. And Miss Rogers and Mr. Milland have played it with spirit and taste. Never once does either permit the suggestion of a leer to creep in ... Miss Rogers gives a beautiful imitation of a Quiz Kid imitating Baby Snooks. And in those moments when romance brightly kindles, she is a soft and altogether winning miss. Put this down as one of the best characterizations of her career. Credit Mr. Milland, too, with making a warm and nimble fellow of the major, and all the rest of the cast for doing very well with lively roles."
Variety called the film a "sparkling and effervescing piece of farce-comedy" with a story that is "light, fluffy, and frolicsome ... Both script and direction swing the yarn along at a consistent pace, with the laughs developing naturally and without strain." As a neophyte director, Wilder heavily relied on editor Doane Harrison for guidance. Harrison had edited Hold Back the Dawn (1941), which Brackett and Wilder had written. Unusually for an editor, Harrison was on the set for filming as well as working in the cutting room. Wilder later said, "I worked with a very good cutter, Doane Harrison, from whom I learned a great deal. He was much more of a help to me than the cameraman. When I became a director from a writer, my technical knowledge was very meagre." Harrison taught him how to "cut in the camera", a form of spontaneous editing that results in a minimal amount of film being shot and eliminates the possibility of studio heads later adding footage the director deemed unnecessary. In later years, Wilder commented, "When I finish a film, there is nothing on the cutting room floor but chewing gum wrappers and tears." Wilder's and Harrison's unusually close and important collaboration continued for every subsequent film directed by Wilder through The Fortune Cookie (1966).
Lattitude: 34.05° N
Longitude: 118.25° W
Region: North America
Modern Day United States
