Product Description

Through no fault of his own, artist and lady's man Richard Nugent finds a love-besotted teenage girl curled on his sofa. Through no fault of his own, the teen's sister is a judge who "sentences" thunderstruck Richard to date the girl until her schoolgirl crush wanes. Circumstances aren't kind to Richard. But they certainly are hilarious when Cary Grant plays Richard, Myrna Loy is the judge and Shirley Temple is the teen.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4623 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-06-01
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 95 minutes

Customer Reviews

"Susan's growing pains are rapidly becoming a major disease.
Shirley Temple is Susan, the 17-year-old sister of the rather stuffy Judge (Myrna Loy), who develops an infatuation for artist Cary Grant. Grant is "asked" to date Temple until the infatuation wears off; meanwhile, he and Loy fall in love. There are a couple of terrific scenes, like the one in the restaurant where all the characters converge in grand confusion and misunderstanding. There is also a very appealing breeziness in all the proceedings (helped along mostly by Rudy Valee as Loy's longtime beau and Roy Collins as a psychiatrist). Worth a watch.

"I couldn't help overhearing. I had my ear to the door."
Far from Grant's worst (THE PRIDE AND THE PASSION) and definitely not his best (THE AWFUL TRUTH) THE BACHELOR & THE BOBBY-SOXER just kinda sits somewhere in the middle, well, maybe just a little higher than the middle. The cast is strong, the script a little forced, but the direction by Irving Reis is flat and uninspired. If Howard Hawks, Preston Sturges or Leo McCarey had directed this same movie it would be a masterpiece.

After a brief encounter, teenager Shirley Temple has fallen deeply in love with the older but dashing Cary Grant. So deep in fact that she sneaks into his apartment while he's gone. Grant returns a few minutes before the law does and next thing you know Grant is ordered by the court to hang out with Temple until she falls out of love with him! See what I mean by the script being forced.

Anyway, that's a long and confusing set-up just to see Grant in a difficult situation, but it's almost worth it cause some really funny stuff happens next. What most people seem to remember is when Grant turns the tables and actually acts like a crazy talking teenager "Hi. Mello greeting, yookie dookie!" But my favorite scene is when Grant takes Judge Myrna Loy to dinner at a fancy club and before long everybody in the cast is sitting at their table arguing. Rudy Vallee even has his chair stolen at one point!

Woman: "Now there's a guy who never goes out of a girl's mind. He just stays there...like a heavy meal."
Man: "Oh yea. Then what am I like?"
Woman: "Orange juice."

THE BACHELOR & THE BOBBY-SOXER is worth watching (a few times) and has some good screwball scenes, but it just never reaches that lunatic pace that made THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK, BRINGING UP BABY and LOVE CRAZY such timeless classics.

Dick - Cary Grant (THE AWFUL TRUTH, BRINGING UP BABY)
Margaret - Myrna Loy (THE THIN MAN, LOVE CRAZY)
Susan - Shirley Temple (FORT APACHE, SINCE YOU WENT AWAY)
Tommy - Rudy Valee (THE PALM BEACH STORY, UNFAITHFULLY YOURS)
Beemish - Ray Collins (TOUCH OF EVIL, CITIZEN KANE)
Thaddeus - Harry Davenport (GONE WITH THE WIND, THE OX-BOW INCIDENT)

Funny...
I laughed out loud a few times at this movie. Cary Grant is his usual "no good yet funny" self, and Shirley Temple is a very cute teenager. Simple, amusing, and 40's clean. This is a very good "popcorn" movie. Enjoy it--they don't make 'em like this anymore!!