I have seen many comedies where I found myself unable to laugh because the characters are too stupid to be believable. I realize people in comedies rarely act like real human beings—that is part of the reason why those are comedies. But the premise of a picture, and the world it builds, sets the bounds in which those characters can operate. That said, some plots are so preposterous that I find it impossible to suspend my disbelief enough to accept them.
This is why I’m amazed I enjoy 1942’s The Major and the Minor as much as I do. It is a deeply funny movie, but everything is hung on the concept of a 30-something Ginger Rogers passing herself off as an eleven-year-old (“I turn twelve next week”). While the actress’s small stature helps to sell this ruse, such elements as the lines on her neck betray her age.
The only reason she is doing this is because she didn’t have enough money for the adult fare from New York back to her hometown in rural Indiana. In the train station she transforms her outfit to be more like that of a child. I like how she made what I can only assume are colorful striped socks (this is a black and white film, after all) out of the arms of a sweater. To complete the ensemble, she steals a balloon from a distracted girl.
Two train conductors appeared to be the only adults who are suspicious of her, and are determined to trick her into revealing she’s an adult. One of the best laughs in the film is when one of them asks why she’s so tall and she replies she is of Swedish stock. One of the men challenges her to say something in Swedish, and she replies in her best Garbo impersonation, “I vant to be alone…”
It is while fleeing those conductors that she ends up hiding in the compartment of Ray Milland. He is the major of the title, and the head of a military school. Something that boggles my mind is he insists she spend the night on the spare bunk he has. I can’t imagine the scandal, if not actual prison time, this would result in today.
Instead, the potentially bigger scandal is if it is discovered Rogers is of legal age. That is what his fiancée (Rita Johnson) and her father (Edward Fielding)—who is also his boss–correctly assumed at first. There is a long setup to my favorite gag in the film, so I won’t go into that here, but the first time they see Rogers, it is through the window into the train compartment where she and Milland are doubled over laughing, incorrectly believing this at their expense.
Realizing his career and potential marriage are at stake, Milland convinces Rogers to come with him back to the academy, so she can help clear his name and help him mend some fences. That the other adults so readily believe Rogers is a prepubescent girl is up the viewer to decide whether or not they will accept this conceit.
My favorite character in the picture is the only one to see right through this ruse. Diana Lynn is Johnson’s young sister and roommate for Rogers while she’s on the campus. Only somebody closer to the age Rogers is pretending to be can see the artificiality: “Oh, get up and stop that baby talk.” Being the only person Rogers can be herself around, Lynn is the only one she treats like an equal. The scenes between the two aren’t funny, but they’re among the best in the movie and I wish there were more of them. Lynn is so good here, and at such an early age, that I find it hard to believe she would be subjected to the endless inanities of Bedtime for Bozo just a decade later.
I wasn’t surprised every other character here of Lynn’s age is convinced by Rogers’s act, as they are all boys, and at a military school, to boot. All 300-plus cadets are eager to pass the time with her. We will see a few of them try their awkward technique of demonstrating alleged legendary military tactical maneuvers, when they have different maneuvers in mind. These scenes don’t play very well today. Some might say those were more innocent times, but I don’t think there is anything innocent about these moments of attempted assault. It is especially weird that Rogers is fending off advances of boys she conceivably could have conceived, given the age differences.
One of these boys happens to have Robert Benchley as his father. In the opening scene, we’ll see the history she has with his character, as she fends off his advances when she comes to his apartment in her employment as a “hair treatment and scalp massage specialist”. If such an operation sounds like a front for prostitution, I suspect that is what it really was, though nobody informed Rogers, who has sunk what little money she had into the tools of the trade. I’m always pleased to see the Algonquin Round Table wit in a film, and he is great here in basically an extended cameo as a cad: “Why don’t you get out of that wet coat and into a dry martini. I’d offer you a gin and tonic, but I have yet to think of a joke for that.” Her cover will be at risk of being blown when there is a big cotillion at the academy, which will draw in the cadet’s parents for the weekend.
The dramatic tension is a curious series of delicate trusses. Rogers is clearly interested in Milland, so it seems like she has nothing to lose by revealing her true nature. Her motivation for not doing so seems only so as to not disrupt his engagement to Johnson, but that woman honestly doesn’t seem very interested in him. She keeps interceding to prevent his transfer to active service, despite that being what he most wants to do. Heck, even her younger sister better knows what Milland wants, and she’s rooting for Rogers to deep six that engagement. But, curiously, if Rogers succeeds in doing that, and helps Milland set into active duty, he’ll be kept far apart from her. Hell, maybe permanently away from her, given this was wartime.
In the penultimate scene of The Major and the Minor, we will see Rogers with her mother who, surprisingly, is played by her real-life mom. Then, Rogers makes herself up to impersonate her mother. She is about as convincing playing somebody almost twice her age as she is playing somebody less than half of it. And yet, this film is enjoyable enough that I am willing to overlook this or, to put it more accurately, to overlook how all the other characters bar one believes it.
Dir: Billy Wilder
Starring Ginger Rogers, Ray Milland, Rita Johnson, Diana Lynn
Watched on Arrow blu-ray