TAKE HER SHE'S MINE
Your August 2005 RMC LITE results are in!!!!
The movie was TAKE HER, SHE'S MINE. This was in my collection because I thought I was in it in high school (although some of my friends were in THSM, I was actually in OUT OF THE FRYING PAN. Please make a note of it.).
Jimmy Stewart is perfectly cast as Frank Michaelson, the loving, loyal, yet anguished dad saddled with keeping his college-bound daughter Mollie (look at me, I'm Sandra Dee) out of trouble. Stewart is once again the endearing character, never relying on over the top humor or sight gags prevalent in today's comedies. And nobody does Jimmy Stewart better than Jimmy Stewart. His under the breath mutterings and overall trying-to-wrap-his-poor-head-around-it demeanor is spot on. He is a dad trying to make sense of a situation, not an actor playing a dad trying to make sense of a situation.
It's great that the movie shows you clearly, up front, what will happen. The opening scene is Stewart in a conference room at the law firm he works at, being chastised for his recent behavior, all illustrated with pictures from newspaper clippings. Then, as the story is told in flashbacks, we watch how it came to be that these pictures took place. And although we've seen the pictures in advance, it's still funny when it happens. Credit screenwriter Nunnally Johnson (with playwrights Henry and Phoebe Ephron; the play starred Art Carney).
Frank goes to Mollie's college, only to find her attending a sit-in because the library banned a Henry Miller book. Returning home after getting in trouble for that, he finds that Mollie dropped out of school to live in France with a boy. Again, Frank takes off after her, making his way through a series of SPEED-like cab rides and costume parties, and doing exactly what any father should do- embarrass themselves in the name of their daughter.
Playing his wife Anne is Mrs. Kramden (Audrey Meadows), unfortunately there ever so briefly while Frank travels the globe. Robert Morley plays a nut named Mr. Pope-Jones who befriends Frank in France and helps him (not without consequence) track down his kid. Bob Denver was also on board as a Post-Dobie/Pre-Gilligan beatnik in the club called The Sleeping Pill. And who can't love John McGiver as Frank's co-worker who is outraged at Frank's behavior so much, he is spearheading the dismissal hearing.
Three small roles: Jim Nabors! Though his voice was dubbed by someone else. Ga-ah-ah-lee!
And Rusty Burell, bailiff on THE PEOPLE'S COURT for years, was in the movie somewhere (uncredited, IMDb). And when Gidget, I mean Tammy, I mean the girl Kate Bosworth played in BEYOND THE SEA, I mean Sandra walks through the airport with dad, many boys (in fact, only boys) say hi to her (Frank: "Don't you know any girls?"), well, one of the boys is James Brolin-Streisand.
At the heart of it all, TAKE HER, SHE'S MINE has a ton to do with the end of innocence:
-Frank tries to maintain his and his family's
-Mollie sits-in and drops-out, all founded in her innocence to find herself, and
-The film itself, which exudes an innocence which with the approach of the late 60s will begin its road to extinction.
In fact, the innocence of the father trying to understand and protect his daughter wouldn't play today as it did in the early 60s. No dad is that square anymore (without being broad, like say, Eugene Levy in AMERICAN PIE). No gap is that large. But that's what makes him and the movie so lovable. Jimmy Stewart, America's Everyman, flummoxed when reading Miller's TROPIC OF CANCER. And Jimmy Stewart, America's Dad, talking of a Picasso painting of a woman with three breasts seems wrong and funny at the same time.
It's a fun comedy, which I recommend. The story and dialogue are all true to life. If only Nora and Dehlia learned more from parents Henry and Phoebe.
Tags: random movie club, take her she's mine, jimmy stewart, sandra dee
