The Major and the Minor

After making a name for himself in Hollywood as a writer of witty and worldly romantic comedies, Austrian-born German émigré Billy Wilder made his directorial debut with this very American farce. Ginger Rogers plays Susan, a New York working girl who poses as a 12-year-old to get a half-fare ticket with the last of her savings in order to return to her Midwest home. When she's caught smoking by a suspicious conductor, she takes refuge with a paternal military officer (Ray Milland) who is inexplicably fooled by her disguise. He takes her to a military academy, where the teenage cadets try to romance her and she meddles with his engagement to a high society woman (Rita Johnson) who schemes to keep him out of World War II. Wilder and writer partner Charles Brackett combine high-spirited farce and risqué humor in a very funny comedy that manages to balance worldly cynicism and sincere affection without tipping over into sexualizing a (pretend) little girl. Rogers is in top comic form and the crush her character develops on the charitable Major is Wilder at his most warm and sincere. Diane Lynn delivers the first of her patented wise-beyond-her-years roles as the teenager who sees through Susan's act and becomes her co-conspirator. It's a minor comedy classic with topnotch performances, terrific chemistry, and witty banter, which was remade in 1955 as You're Never Too Young with Jerry Lewis in the Rogers role (a film that was nowhere as effective or funny as the original). Extras include audio commentary by film scholar Adrian Martin, a video appreciation by film critic Neil Sinyard, an archival interview with Milland, a 1943 radio adaptation with Rogers and Milland, and an image gallery. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)