Paramount certainly tried to get their money’s worth out of this Samson Raphaelson play; three shots at the material, missing every time. Naturally, they never asked Raphaelson, one of the all-time great screenwriters, to do an adaption, but enough of his idea survives to make them all watchable. In a tone much like Ferenc Molnár, it charts a bumpy romance between an older, blocked playwright and his much younger secretary when his stillborn play springs to life once he notices how it mirrors their unspoken relationship. But in real life, unlike his play, the younger person speaks up first. A little change that makes a big difference.
The show’s a hit. But then, again just as in the play, the young leading man confesses his love, complicating things in the real world. When well played, like a recent B’way revival with David Spade, the writing still makes its effect, but the first film version (released only a month after the B’way closing; Herbert Marshall; Sylvia Sidney; dir. Wesley Ruggles) might be one of those lightly trimmed Early Talkie stage transfers. Pretty stiff for 1935. Fifteen years on, Paramount loosely remade it as a Bing Crosby musical, with an unresponsive Nancy Olson as secretary and athletic Robert Stack as the age-appropriate rival.* The gimmick in Arthur Sheekman’s lousy script has Bing too lazy/too afraid of failure to compose, and Olson there to crack the whip. With equally lousy tunes from Jimmy Van Heusen & Johnny Burke, not even guest shots from Marge & Gower Champion, Peggy Lee & Groucho Marx help. Third time round was better, if not the charm (script revamped by John Michael Hayes as BUT NOT FOR ME/’59, with Clark Gable, Carroll Baker, Lilli Palmer. Maybe they taped the Spades revival. LINK: https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2013/12/but-not-for-me-1959.html).
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *In real life, Nancy Olson had just married a songwriter, lyricist Alan Jay Lerner.
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