“The Bachelor and the Bobby-soxer” stars three of Hollywood’s biggest stars – Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, and Shirley Temple. Shirley has abandoned the frilly skirts and ringlets and appears in this film as a teenager, looking quite different – almost. When she smiles, we see that she is the same little girl we watched grow up on film.
Cary Grant plays Richard Nugent, an artist who has unfortunate luck with women. Everywhere he goes, they’re fighting over him, and he’s helpless to stop it. The morning after one such fight, he has to appear in court. Myrna Loy, in the role of Margaret Turner, is the judge, and she is not amused with his playboy antics. She tells him that the next time he appears before her in court, she’ll throw the book at him.
That afternoon, Richard goes to the local high school to give a lecture on art. It just so happens that this is the school Judge Turner’s little sister Susan (Shirley Temple) attends. She’s seventeen and feeling very mature. Her old boyfriend isn’t enough of a man, she has decided. She’s ready for a more mature relationship, and when she claps eyes on Richard, she decides that’s the man she wants.
As the editor-in-chief of her school newspaper, she has to interview Richard about his job (this part is hysterical.) She asks him if he thinks she could be a model, he says yes, and she takes this to mean that she is invited to be one of his models. Spurred on by love, she sneaks out of her bedroom that night, over to his apartment, and gets the bellboy to let her in. She is prepared to wait all night for the man of her dreams to come home.
Come home he must, several hours later. Susan has fallen asleep on the couch, unbeknownst to him, and then comes the banging on the door. Margaret has pieced all the clues together and come a callin’. Richard opens the door and can’t explain how Susan got to his apartment; he doesn’t know. He spends the night in jail.
Things get crazier as Margaret realizes that she has to break Susan of her infatuation. Sending Richard to jail would only make him a martyr in Susan’s eyes, and that much more desirable. It would be so much better to let Susan have her way and see what she really would be getting. Richard’s sentence: to date Susan.
It’s so funny to watch Cary Grant attending high school hangouts and trying to fit in. The best part of this movie for me was watching his facial expressions throughout. He’s always been very communicative with his face. By the end, of course, he’s not dating Susan any more, but has moved on to pastures a little closer to his own age. I enjoyed this movie quite a bit and highly recommend it.
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