365 Days. 365 Films.

Several years ago I bought a Marilyn Monroe boxset which included this film, and this, among others in the collection, still have not been touched, until now. If you’re a fan of Marilyn Monroe then you should definitely watch this because it’s one of her earlier films, but God knows why she’s on the cover because she’s not exactly a major character… However many lines she has, she does play the part wonderfully, oozing charm and wit (as usual).

But this isn’t about Monroe. This is a story about John Hodges (Monty Woolley) who, as he turns 65, is forced to retire. Concerned about his family’s income and his sudden abundance of spare time, he impersonates the head of a huge company (who owns the company for which he worked for) and asks them to dispel this law, and much hilarity ensues. The comedy in this film is sometimes a little outdated, however I did find that there were some parts that were still genuinely funny. Monty Woolley is brilliant in this film and his dialogue in particular is very well written. The characterisation with his character is minimal but you do still get a feel for him and become wholly entranced in Woolley’s performance which is hilarious, charming and endearing.


The whole film does have a brilliantly formulated script and I can never resist the charm of a black and white movie – I realise that this may put some people off the film, I know certain people who will refuse to watch a black and white film unless it’s Schindler’s List, but it really does still stand up today. The cinematography is fairly standard, nothing special, and the editing was sometimes (perhaps intentionally) slightly off-putting, for example it would fade out while it looked as if the scene was still going on, people were still talking, doing things and it did sort of seem like a bad attempt at cutting out unwanted scenes (and judging by the trailer, they did). I’ve seen this done in older films before, for some reason no one told them that they had to end a scene on what’s called a “button” which finishes off a scene nicely, but this, more so than other older films I’ve seen, made it a little too obvious. If you’re used to old, black and white films like me then it probably won’t bother you, but as I said, other films were a lot more discreet about it than this one.

All the same is was enjoyable but not brilliant, a must for Monroe fans although don’t be disappointed by her lack of screen time, and it’s generally a nice, light-hearted comedy which happened to be only 77 minutes long. So, if you don’t have a lot of time to watch a film but have nothing else to do and want to be cheered up – watch this!

P.S. Please excuse the trailer, it’s incredibly cheesy and doesn’t do the film any justice. Plus I couldn’t embed it for some reason…