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Pretty Good

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

Director: HARRY BEAUMONT. Screenplay: Mary C. McCall Jr. Story: Harry Ruby and James O'Hanlon. Based on the character created by Wilson Collison. Uncredited screenplay contributors: Harry Clork, Howard Emmett Rogers. Photography: Robert Planck. Film editor: Frank E. Hull. Art directors: Cedric Gibbons, Howard Campbell. Set decorators: Edwin B. Willis, Helen Conway. Music: David Snell. Songs by Ralph Freed and Sammy Fain. "Panhandle Pete" number choreographed by Sammy Lee. Additional photography: William Daniels. Unit manager: Hugh Boswell. Assistant director: Charles O'Malley. Sound supervisor: Douglas Shearer. Western Electric Sound System. Producer: George Haight.Copyright 20 July 1944 by Loew's Inc. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer picture. New York opening at Loew's State: 28 September 1944. U.S. release: September 1944. U.K. release: November-December 1944. Australian release: 22 February 1945. 9 reels. 8,069 feet. 90 minutes. U.K. release title: YOU CAN'T DO THAT TO ME.SYNOPSIS: Maisie goes to Reno? Before seeing the picture, we presumed she was dying to get a divorce from the schnook she married in Ringside Maisie. No? What's she doing in Reno, then? Oh, I see. She's taking a well-earned rest from that super-boring airplane factory job featured in Swing Shift Maisie.NOTES: The 8th of the nine Maisie pictures. COMMENT: Needless to say, this entry, the best of the Maisie pictures was also one of the least popular with audiences. The cast is great. John Hodiak who had a small role in the previous entry has a different part in this one, but it's the lead. Hodiak was always one of my favorite actors. Rejected by the armed services because of the hypertension that eventually led to his fatal heart attack, Hodiak always invested his performances with an appealing intensity. A sort of middle-class equivalent of John Garfield's firmly working- class protagonist, Hodiak always gave the impression of playing on the edge. He always invested his characters with depth — no matter how superficially they may have been written. And of course there's Ava Gardner, definitely Hollywood's top siren as far as I'm concerned. You can keep your blonde pin-up girls. Ava Gardner, like Simone Simon and Ingrid Bergman, always projected class, with a capital "C". Admittedly, her role is small, but vital. She plays it with total conviction and looks most attractive too. (Maybe William Daniels photographed her scenes?)I could go through the rest of the cast, ticking through the performers one by one, but I'll content myself with praising Byron Foulger. Always a number one character player with me since I first caught him as Professor Henderson in the Universal serial, "The Master Key". In fact for years, not knowing his real name, I used to call him, Professor Henderson. Here Foulger gives us a comic near- sighted psychiatrist, a delicious impersonation that raises more laughs in ten minutes than Miss Sothern contrives in the entire picture. As for the director, Harry Beaumont, a neglected master if ever there was one. You don't agree with me? I appeal to Orson Welles. Isn't Harry Beaumont one of the greatest? Orson fidgets. He knows what I'm getting at. But he's eventually forced to admit that he greatly admired Beaumont's handling of the courtroom scene in this movie. So much so that he imitated it, throwing in a few more tricks for "The Lady from Shanghai".But these are not the only terrific moments in Maisie Goes to Reno. With a plot fashioned by Harry "Three Little Words" Ruby and James "Calamity Jane" O'Hanlon, we know to expect the delightfully unexpected. For instance, what about that running gag with the little black dog? And what about the delightful "Panhandle Pete" number? And how about the usually meek Donald Meek as a wonderfully grouchy manager with no warmth in his testy heart at all?Production values with their big crowd scenes at the bus depot, the hotel and the court-room are mighty impressive. Only Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer could dress up a "B" movie with such style and finesse.

Plot-- Maisie takes a vacation to Reno from her demanding wartime job. At the train station she gets caught up with a likable soldier being sent abroad. There she agrees to take a letter to his wife in Reno pleading with her to stop divorce proceedings. Trouble is things are not what they seem at the wife's Reno household.Lesser entry in the Maisie series. The series draw, of course, is Sothern's spunky turn as the sassy blonde. Problem here is that the supporting roles are all sober-sides (except for Byron Foulger's last-minute goofy doctor), who too often squelch Maisie's comedic spark. Thus the amusement doesn't spread. Then too, the slender plot gets dragged out over 90-minutes minus needed comedic mood. Then too, the storyline meanders rather than builds.On the other hand, the opening scenes are a good taste of wartime America, with crowded trains, ration cards, and Maisie the Riveter. I wish that had carried over to the body of the movie. Also, I thought we'd get more swing-time band numbers given Maisie's employment with a band.Anyway, the tall, striking Hodiak is made for film noir not comedy, while the equally striking Gardner is largely wasted in a lesser role, still early in her career. At the same time, 1944 was a big year for all-American boy Tom Drake, what with his key role in the classic Meet Me In St. Louis (1944). Too bad his career never flowered. And what about that Mickey Rooney look- alike as the bellhop. I kept having to tell myself it's really not Rooney.All in all, the series and actress Sothern are better than this particular installment.

The first third of this movie was irritating, the second third was mildly amusing, and the final third was downright tedious.I didn't even find the premise to be plausible, in that this to-be divorcée was allowing her secretary to run her life for her. Rich people live in a different world. They are accustomed to telling people what to do, not to having people tell them what to do.Possible spoiler to follow: I also didn't buy the cliché about how easily people assume that someone is mentally unbalanced. Just because someone believes there is a plot afoot, does not automatically mean they are a mental case. It's not like no one has ever plotted against anyone for financial gain.I didn't enjoy this movie. I ought to have heeded the other reviews. I wish I had skipped it.

In "Maisie Goes to Reno," our usually effervescent Maisie is burnt out working in a wartime factory and is sent on a vacation by her doctor. She accepts an offer to sing with her old band in Reno and relax by day but finds that in order to get there, she has to buy the ticket of a woman who's decided not to go. A soldier sees the transaction and begs Maisie to help him. Initially, he wants her ticket but when an MP informs him that his unit has been called in, he asks Maisie to take a note to his soon to be ex-wife in order to stop the divorce.In Reno, Maisie discovers that the man's wife (Ava Gardner) is being duped by two con artists into believing her husband just wants her money. Maisie herself becomes involved with an employee in the hotel casino (John Hodiak).Sothern does a fun rendition of "Panhandle Pete," Gardner is ravishing, and John Hodiak was never handsomer. Most of the "Maisie" series was pleasant without being overwhelming, though perhaps some of the earlier films were better. This one is okay, worth it to see Gardner and Hodiak in early roles - and of course, the always wonderful Sothern.