Friday, February 6, 2009

Rings On Her Fingers (1942)

Susan Miller (Gene Tierney) is a department store sales girl who dreams of the good life. One day a rich couple visits the store and soon she is whisked away to exotic locales with them.Why? They need big fish and she is the bait - the couple are con artists and she is now a part of their scam. Unfortunately, John Wheeler (Henry Fonda) is at the wrong place at the wrong time and falls hook line and sinker for Susan Miller, who is now Linda Worthington.


Lobby Card for "Rings On Her Fingers"

This is a cute little Cinderella story. A quote from Gene Tierney's department store sales girl character sets the tone of that nicely with, "I guess we were just born on the wrong side of the counter." I really enjoyed seeing Henry Fonda again since I have developed sunch a fondness for Fonda. :-) Gene Tierney did well and my goodness, was she a beautiful woman or what? She filled out that bathing suit quite nicely too. Henry Fonda's character remarked in the film, "If you didn't have a face like that our quarrels would last a lot longer!" I bet they would, indeed. The supporting cast of the con couple, Laird Cregar (who was surprising agile for a large man) and Spring Byington, played it so charming and devious. So the actors were all great - no issue there with this one.

The downside of this one is that we have seen this story many times. Frankly, we have seen a better screenplay of this acted out many times. There is nothing original or clever here. This is another classic example of really good performances propping up what would otherwise be a very mediocre film.

Luckily, the performances do prop the film up and make it a very enjoyable. It is not outstanding, but very enjoyable. If you find this on TCM and have time to kill, give it a shot. It is pretty shallow as films go, but fun. :-)

1 comment:

kda0121 said...

I love this movie. Fonda is so good at playing the dolt and Gene Tierney is a BIG WOW to gaze upon. Funny movie, in a bright, sparkling romantic comedy of yesteryear.