The Major and the Minor (1942)
January 11, 2025 3:52 PM - Subscribe
A frustrated city girl disguises herself as a youngster in order to get a cheaper train ticket home. But little "Sue Sue" finds herself in a whole heap of grown-up trouble when she hides out in a compartment with a handsome Major.
Susan Applegate (Ginger Rogers) decides to leave New York City and take a train back to Iowa, but she has only enough money for a child's ticket. She disguises herself as a young girl and, after being discovered by the train conductor, hides out in the car of Major Kirby (Ray Milland). Kirby believes she is a child and watches after her. But as Kirby's fiancée (Rita Johnson) and others grow suspicious of Susan's ruse, her cleverness is thoroughly tested.
Karli Lukas: Her masquerade as a boisterous, somewhat flirtatious “innocent” leads Sue-Sue into many sticky situations with men, usually followed shortly thereafter by their fiancées or wives. For some reason, the adult women in the film never see Sue-Sue as a threat. Accepting the cutie-pie act, their maternal instincts ooze out of every pore; that is until their men become smitten with her peculiar charm.
Another of the film’s most delicious moments is at the military academy where Sue-Sue is staying at Kirby’s fiancée’s house as his guest. Unsurprisingly, everyone, especially the hormonal adolescent cadets, finds Sue-Sue’s “qualities” highly desirable. In shiftwork-like procession, the boys attempt to put the school’s apparent rank-and-file theory of l’amour into practice. However, Kirby inadvertently stumbles across her wriggling under a cadet attempting the “sure fire” Maginot Line manoeuvre. During the ensuing sequence, the audience and Susan are painfully made aware of Kirby’s suppressed attraction for Ginger-as-Sue-Sue. Bumbling along through a spiel about the facts of life, Kirby compares her vitality to the inner power of a light bulb and suggests she should remain ever cautious of “the moth’s” advances. Recounting a previous crush on a dancing instructor as a teenager, he tells her how his love affairs are “always off schedule 20 or 30 years” and that through squinted eyes she could be a beautiful woman. Thereafter we see Kirby constantly screwing up his eyes in order to distort and invent a mind’s-eye picture of Sue-Sue-as-Ginger, who we already know is the dazzling Ginger-as-Susan. Kirby continues to struggle with his views of Sue-Sue until the final shot of the film, which I refuse to give away. Suffice to say it is perhaps one of cinema’s most bizarre, verging on perverse, moments.
In this closing scene, it becomes apparent that Wilder’s success lies in his ability to constantly efface chauvinism, perversity and slander. Purely by suggestion, utilising farce, cynicism and a wicked sense of industry self-reflexivity, Wilder cunningly holds our hand and leads us down his ever-forking paths.
Agnes Sajti: Wilder was known for continually pushing the boundaries of censorship, and there’s no doubt he pushes them here. The scene where SuSu and the Major first meet is the most clever play on the strict Hays Code rules audiences of the time had seen. As SuSu, runs from the conductors, she bursts into Kirby’s compartment and claims she fears the thunderstorm outside. Kirby tries to calm her down by climbing into his bed with her, hugging her caringly. This scene would not have passed the Code rules without SuSu’s disguise, as censorship even prohibited married couples from being shown in the same bed. According to the censors, Rogers posing as a child had no sexual meaning; therefore, the scene passed. But today, the scene feels incredibly problematic on so many levels.
As a result, The Major and the Minor would never be made today. In 1955, Norman Taurog made a gender-swapped, musical-heist version of the film under the title You’re Never Too Young, but it wasn’t well-received, a possible indication of how far things had moved since 1942. Don’t get me wrong, The Major and the Minor remains enjoyable as a comedy if you don’t examine it too closely. And if nothing else, it jump-started Wilder’s versatile career, which we can only be grateful for.
Virginie Pronovost: Despite a plot where the woman plays the role of a child so, therefore, has to obey a certain authority, The Major and the Minor has a lot to teach us about the evolution of female characters in classic films. First, the main character, Susan Applegate, is a woman who is presented to us as a leader instead of a follower or a damsel in distress. From her first on-screen appearance in the film, we can’t help noticing Ginger Rogers assurance and independence in the way she talks and behave. She, therefore, enters in the same league of the strong female characters portrayed by the Dietrichs and the Stanwycks of this world. She’s not fooled by the men who flirt with her in an impolite way (her customer Mr. Osborne and the elevator guy at Osborne’s apartment), and win the battle by breaking an egg on both their heads. Also, by playing the role of a young girl in order to obtain a cheap train ticket, she is shown as a woman who has a strong mind telling her not to give up.
Trailer
Susan Applegate (Ginger Rogers) decides to leave New York City and take a train back to Iowa, but she has only enough money for a child's ticket. She disguises herself as a young girl and, after being discovered by the train conductor, hides out in the car of Major Kirby (Ray Milland). Kirby believes she is a child and watches after her. But as Kirby's fiancée (Rita Johnson) and others grow suspicious of Susan's ruse, her cleverness is thoroughly tested.
Karli Lukas: Her masquerade as a boisterous, somewhat flirtatious “innocent” leads Sue-Sue into many sticky situations with men, usually followed shortly thereafter by their fiancées or wives. For some reason, the adult women in the film never see Sue-Sue as a threat. Accepting the cutie-pie act, their maternal instincts ooze out of every pore; that is until their men become smitten with her peculiar charm.
Another of the film’s most delicious moments is at the military academy where Sue-Sue is staying at Kirby’s fiancée’s house as his guest. Unsurprisingly, everyone, especially the hormonal adolescent cadets, finds Sue-Sue’s “qualities” highly desirable. In shiftwork-like procession, the boys attempt to put the school’s apparent rank-and-file theory of l’amour into practice. However, Kirby inadvertently stumbles across her wriggling under a cadet attempting the “sure fire” Maginot Line manoeuvre. During the ensuing sequence, the audience and Susan are painfully made aware of Kirby’s suppressed attraction for Ginger-as-Sue-Sue. Bumbling along through a spiel about the facts of life, Kirby compares her vitality to the inner power of a light bulb and suggests she should remain ever cautious of “the moth’s” advances. Recounting a previous crush on a dancing instructor as a teenager, he tells her how his love affairs are “always off schedule 20 or 30 years” and that through squinted eyes she could be a beautiful woman. Thereafter we see Kirby constantly screwing up his eyes in order to distort and invent a mind’s-eye picture of Sue-Sue-as-Ginger, who we already know is the dazzling Ginger-as-Susan. Kirby continues to struggle with his views of Sue-Sue until the final shot of the film, which I refuse to give away. Suffice to say it is perhaps one of cinema’s most bizarre, verging on perverse, moments.
In this closing scene, it becomes apparent that Wilder’s success lies in his ability to constantly efface chauvinism, perversity and slander. Purely by suggestion, utilising farce, cynicism and a wicked sense of industry self-reflexivity, Wilder cunningly holds our hand and leads us down his ever-forking paths.
Agnes Sajti: Wilder was known for continually pushing the boundaries of censorship, and there’s no doubt he pushes them here. The scene where SuSu and the Major first meet is the most clever play on the strict Hays Code rules audiences of the time had seen. As SuSu, runs from the conductors, she bursts into Kirby’s compartment and claims she fears the thunderstorm outside. Kirby tries to calm her down by climbing into his bed with her, hugging her caringly. This scene would not have passed the Code rules without SuSu’s disguise, as censorship even prohibited married couples from being shown in the same bed. According to the censors, Rogers posing as a child had no sexual meaning; therefore, the scene passed. But today, the scene feels incredibly problematic on so many levels.
As a result, The Major and the Minor would never be made today. In 1955, Norman Taurog made a gender-swapped, musical-heist version of the film under the title You’re Never Too Young, but it wasn’t well-received, a possible indication of how far things had moved since 1942. Don’t get me wrong, The Major and the Minor remains enjoyable as a comedy if you don’t examine it too closely. And if nothing else, it jump-started Wilder’s versatile career, which we can only be grateful for.
Virginie Pronovost: Despite a plot where the woman plays the role of a child so, therefore, has to obey a certain authority, The Major and the Minor has a lot to teach us about the evolution of female characters in classic films. First, the main character, Susan Applegate, is a woman who is presented to us as a leader instead of a follower or a damsel in distress. From her first on-screen appearance in the film, we can’t help noticing Ginger Rogers assurance and independence in the way she talks and behave. She, therefore, enters in the same league of the strong female characters portrayed by the Dietrichs and the Stanwycks of this world. She’s not fooled by the men who flirt with her in an impolite way (her customer Mr. Osborne and the elevator guy at Osborne’s apartment), and win the battle by breaking an egg on both their heads. Also, by playing the role of a young girl in order to obtain a cheap train ticket, she is shown as a woman who has a strong mind telling her not to give up.
Trailer
Also, out of curiosity I looked it up, and the $27.50 fare would be close to $600 bucks today. Not exactly cheap for a ticket!
posted by Carillon at 4:16 PM on January 11
posted by Carillon at 4:16 PM on January 11
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Billy Wilder's first Hollywood film! I felt a lot of his later films inspiration from this one. So while it's not maybe top-tier, it works better than I expected and doesn't take itself too seriously.
posted by Carillon at 3:57 PM on January 11