"I Have My Own Theory About the Fall of France" - The Major and the Minor

Let's talk about The Major and the Minor, my favourite Ginger Rogers movie, my favourite Ray Milland movie (so far, at least, considering I've only seen a handful of them), and one that I could happily watch and watch and watch over and over and over again without tiring of it.

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The Major and the Minor is a lighthearted comedy masterpiece. It's Ginger Rogers at her comedienne best. It's Billy Wilder's directorial debut. It's perfectly charming and light. And it would absolutely not get made today under any circumstances.

Why? Well, here's the IMDB Plot Summary: "A woman disguises herself as a child to save on a train fare and is taken in charge by an army man who doesn't notice the truth."

Let's boil it down. 

Ginger Rogers plays Susan Applegate, a young woman in New York City who's just about fed up with trying to make it in the Big Apple. Especially when she has to deal with guys like this on a regular basis: 

She's had about 25 jobs since landing in New York the year prior, and is just about ready to throw in the cloth and return to Stevenson, Iowa, once and for all. 

Enter Mr. Osbourne, a handsy client who doesn't actually want the scalp massage procedure he called her for. He wants to help her out of her wet coat and into a dry martini. 

And, in classic Ginger Rogers heroine fashion, she's not putting up with any of it. She quits her job right there, smashes an egg against Osbourne's head, and heads to the train station. 

All set for a trip back to Stevenson, except the fare has gone up since she came to New York last year, and her carefully saved money now isn't enough! 

What does one do in that situation, take a bus? They're on strike. Luckily, right behind Susan is a mother and two children, and she overhears the term "half-fare," which is for children under 12. An idea brews...

Susan quickly looks for the ladies lounge, entering a woman...

and exits a tween. She finds a con man to help her scam the railway agent for a half-price ticket, only he scams her instead and keeps the change.

With a swift kick to the leg, she boards the train and tries to fool the porters that she's actually 12 years old. 

It doesn't help that she has to do some quick math to figure out what year she was born ("1941 minus 12...1929!") or makes up a story that she's so "filled out" because she's from Swedish stock and they all have glandular problems (her brother Olaf is 6'2" and he's only in the second grade!). 

They ask her to say something in Swedish, and she replies, "I vant to be alone," Greta Garbo's classic line from Grand Hotel.

They catch her smoking outside the smoking car, and when she tries to swallow the cigarette, they know they've got her. She can't hold her breath forever! 

She spits it out into a handkerchief and dashes off. Grabs her suitcase, runs through the cars until she finds the sleepers and tries the unlocked doors until she enters the car of one Major Philip Kirby.

Of course, the trusting, naive Major Philip Kirby would leave his door unlocked. He's trusting to a fault. 

He buys her story immediately. Like, doesn't even question it. Just calls her child and helps her craft a story about how she's travelling alone, she doesn't feel well, and 'the man' took her ticket, but if Philip rings for the porter, he'll tell the conductor about her, and he scares her (she tells him that he looks like a spider and that she sees him in her nightmares). 

As one does, he fixes up a bed for her, helps her hide and doesn't think anything of it. He even insists that she call him Uncle Phillip to assuage her worries of being a young girl traveling alone with a strange man. It has to be Ray Milland's nature, but he's so sweet and earnest here, there's not a hint that he thinks anything untoward about Susan ("They call me Su-Su."). He plays it so well. 

Anyways, after a thunder and lightning storm that sees them bonding (and Uncle Philip creating a truly outrageous story about the origins of thunder and lightning...

Su-Su wakes up to see Uncle Philip doing his eye exercises. 

He's got a bum eye, you see? That's why he can't tell that Su-Su isn't a tween at all. It's convenient, and it keeps coming up. The bum eye isn't enough to get him sidelined from active service, which is why he's on the train to begin with: he's a military instructor at the Wallace Institute, but he hates it, so he's been bugging everyone in Washington to transfer him. 

He offers to get her breakfast while they wait, as the train tracks are flooded because of the weather, so the train has stopped about 25 miles away from High Creek, Indiana, where Uncle Philip lives. He asks her what she'd like.

"Just coffee," she tells him. 

"Coffee," he repeats. "Coffee?! They don't give you coffee?" 

Just a little bit in a glass of milk, she recovers. She calls that coffee.

"You know, Su-Su, you're a very peculiar child." 

"You bet I am!" 

Susan plans to tell him all about her disguise when he gets back, so she quickly goes about getting dressed, when someone knocks on the door.

The Major's fiancée, Pamela, and her father, Colonel Hill, the head of Wallace Institute, are driving out to pick him up. 

Pamela, we'll find out, overuses the phrase 'how beguiling!' and is played as a perfect viper trying to keep him out of active service by Rita Johnson, who, I have to point out, has one of the craziest life stories of all time. 

She never really struck it big, becoming a character actress, in part because her forehead was too large (I'm not making that up) and hairdos and hats could only disguise so much. Anyways, a hair dryer fell on her in 1948 causing a serious brain injury that required surgery, caused paralysis, and meant a long recovery that pretty much ended her career. She still acted sporadically, but died in the early '60s, an alcoholic stemming from that freak accident.

Let's just say, finding Ginger Rogers in what's supposed to be your fiancé's bed must be a truly jarring experience. 

Pamela immediately jumps to the logical conclusion: Philip's cheating on her, and smashes the breakfast tray in his face before he can explain that Su-Su is an unaccompanied minor.

Colonel Hill is waiting outside, and they happen to peek inside the Major's window just as Su-Su's sticking a cold cloth on his neck (I've never heard of that as a way to stymie a bleeding nose, but they've got to get them in flangrante delicto somehow). 

Now Philip's in a heap of trouble. Colonel Hill's going to ruin him personally and professionally.

Convinced that there's no other way to clear up what's surely to be a terrific scandal, Uncle Phillip convinces Su-Su to tag along with him back to the Wallace Institute to help clear his name. He'll write her mother a telegram that'll convince her that it's a good idea, and off they go! 

Colonel Hill has called the staff of the Wallace Institute together to discuss how to handle Major Kirby's situation. And Pamela's there to throw the wedding invitations, hot off the presses, onto the floor. This is the look of a group of people amazed that Philip would bring Susan with him to the Wallace Institute.

But then Philip gets the chance to tell them that she's only 12 and suddenly everything's okay again. Pamela immediately jumps into Philip's arms, ready forgive him. I love the look on Susan's face here. She's over the whole situation and just wants to go home to Stevenson. 

She's trapped at the Wallace Institute until Sunday, when the Father is going to Iowa to open a memorial chapel in Des Moines. Philip won't let her get on the train alone because of her stomach troubles, and no matter what excuse she comes up with (she has to have braces put on, she's going to fall behind on her piano lessons), he won't be deterred. Besides, there are boys there for her to woo until she leaves. He owes her, after all, for helping him keep his job!

Major Kirby: Su-Su, this is a treat that doesn't come to one girl in a million. 

Susan Applegate: Does it have to come to me?! 

Major Kirby: Listen, Su-Su, you like boys don't you?

Susan Applegate: What boys?

Major Kirby: Nice boys. Can you dance?

Susan Applegate: A little.

Major Kirby: Three hundred of them, and all of them yours.
Susan Applegate: Mine?!

Uncle Philip shows Su-Su around the campus, include the statue of General Wallace. The cadets throw change into his hat for good luck. 

Notice the body language here: 

Susan finds out she'll be staying with Pamela's tween sister, Lucy. Her suitcase has already been sent up to the room. 

Lucy is Pamela's 12-year-old precocious sister, and she knows Su-Su's story is a lie but keeps her secret anyways all because she needs help in going behind Pamela's back to get Major Kirby into active service.

Over the course of the movie, she and Su-Su become great friends, and their chemistry is truly great. It's either Ginger letting her guard down to play a companion to a tween; or Diana Lynn's maturity putting her on par with the considerably older Ginger (we never learn exactly how old Susan Applegate actually is, though Lucy makes an estimate of 20-25 based on the physiology and lack of baby fat Susan has); whatever it is, it works. 

Lucy's already gone through her suitcase, and helps her keep the secret from Pamela by saying that a fountain pen leaked all over Su-Su's clothes.

Anyways, what follows is Susan Applegate infiltrating the Wallace Institute as cadet after cadet falls for her charms and she has to continue the ruse all weekend.  

There's Cadet Lt Anthony Wigton Jr., probably the most forceful and the most ugh out of all of them. He wins the first hour, and gets to take her to lunch and to the cannon to explain military theory to her.

Cadet Wigton: The first lesson to be derived from this present war is the futility of a stationary defense.

Susan Applegate: You're not just mulling over yesterday's lessons, are you, Lieutenant Wigton?

Cadet Wigton: Please! You want to know how Sedan was taken?

Susan Applegate: How?

Cadet Wigton: This is Sedan! 

Cadet Wigton: The weak point between the big Maginot Line and the little Maginot Line. Now, a flank of the German army swung around, through The Netherlands and Belgium. Then, a panzer division smacked right through here.

Susan Applegate: Why you little devil!

Cadet Wigton: Hot stuff, huh! Then, of course, they took Paris. I got about two more minutes. You want to see how they took Paris?

Susan Applegate: Oh, no!

Cadet Wigton: Oh, that was only kindergarten. Paris is a real kiss!

She runs off, after grabbing him by the nose, and runs smack into Uncle Philip, who'd been watching them from the bushes. But before they can have a proper chat...

Cadet Osborne shows up for his hour of wooing. He's from New York and likes to talk in flirtations. He also tries to impress the young Su-Su by telling her that he's been kicked out of all the best school son the east coast, and then tries to woo her with military strategy again.

Later, after yet another cadet has gone gaga over Su-Su (Cadet Miller, who's bummed that Su-Su won't even give him a kiss like she did with Wigton...he's really laying it on thick and boys are awful to teenage girls, really. Ugh.), Uncle Philip calls Su-Su into his office where they have a talk about...biology. And, oh my God, the way Susan eggs him on as he tries to be delicate about it - I laugh every time.

Major Kirby: A light does attract moths. Mysteriously, nobody knows why it does, it just does, you see, and all we can do is dim the lights or put up screens.
Susan Applegate: Well, you can always go inside. 
Major Kirby: Yes, you can always go inside... Please, Su-Su, don't throw me off. What I'm trying to say is, you don't want to be a light bulb, do you? And have moths all flapping at you and breaking their necks pestering you, do you?
Susan Applegate: It's never been a particular ambition of mine. 

Major Kirby: No... And so you su, See-See, I mean, you see, Su-Su, a girl is like a light bulb as far as boys are concerned. That is, if she's pretty. And with 300 moths in this school well, they're all just attracted. And that's why we say a girl like you is attractive.

Susan Applegate: Am I?

This seems to perk Su-Su up, that he's complimenting her like this. "That little red head of yours is like a dandelion in a big meadow of uniforms," he tells her. 

via thewonderfulworldofcinema

Major Kirby: One day, you're going to be a very charming young lady. 
Susan Applegate: When? 

Major Kirby: Six or seven years. 

Susan Applegate: Then you'll be a general and come to my graduation?

Major Kirby: Mmhmm. You know, Su-Su, when I look at you with just my bum eye, you look almost grown up. Like something in the Sunday supplement with the colors all run together...Su-Su, you're a knockout!

Before he can go any further, he realizes that he's complimenting a tween and changes tack, telling her that she should be more reserved because the boys at the school aren't good for her. She promises to be a "well-behaved light bulb," and leaves. 

Side note: Major Kirby tried to get Pamela to have the birds and the bees discussion with Su-Su, but she says no and tells him that Su-Su'll be fine for the weekend. And about his newfound uncle role: "When you found the urge to become an uncle you should have found a less inflammatory niece." 

I'd watch a side movie of Lucy doing her science experiments (she's going to be a scientist like Madame Curie) and do it gladly.

The now-smitten Susan walks in as Lucy's trying to open a sealed envelope of a letter that Pamela wrote to a friend in Washington, Cornelia. She's married to a man who can have Philip transferred to active duty. Pamela gave Lucy the letter to mail, having told Philip that it's a request to have him transferred, but when Lucy opens it and reads it to Susan, it's asking Cornelia ("You beguiling creature!") to do everything in her power to keep Philip from being transferred. 

Now that Susan is in love with Philip, she wants to help him. She and Lucy scheme to call Cornelia on the telephone and have Susan pretend to be Lucy asking for the transfer. That leads us to...

the switchboard room, where Cadet Korner ("They call me Cozy") is manning the switchboard. She walks all over him and he shows her how to plug in the lines to make the calls. But before she can learn more, his shift ends and Cadet Lt Wigton shows up. He's still mad about what happened at the cannon, and wants Su-Su to scram. 

Eventually, she starts dancing and gets him dancing too, and he runs off to grab his radio so they can do the dances she learned from Benny Goodman. While he's gone, she takes over the switchboard and turns it into chaos. Everybody chooses that moment to call everyone else and she randomly plugs in the lines while she gets Cornelia on the phone. 

Susan Applegate: Cornelia, darling! You beguiling creature! Of course, it's Pamela. I know you couldn't be more surprised. How long has it been? Almost a year? How did my quail recipe turn out? Isn't that chestnut stuffing too beguiling! You did! A great big party? The Chief Justice - and Morgenthau too! I'm sure he asked for more gravy. Well, how beguiling!

Just as everyone shows up to find out what's going on with the switchboard, she tells Cornelia to have Philip switched to active service, and then Wigton shows up with the radio and, finding out that they've been caught, escorts himself to the guardhouse. 

The next evening is the Cadet Ball, and Su-Su is the guest of honour. They're singing outside of her window as she gets ready and Lucy gives her a list of musts and must-nots. 

Gloves are a must. Dancing cheek to cheek is a must-not. A distance of not less than one meter from your partner, that's a must. Newfangled, outlandish steps, must-not. There are 23 musts and 24 must-nots. 

Susan asks if dancing with the faculty is allowed, and Lucy says it's not a must. "Just so long as it's not a must-not." 

The girls from Miss Shackleford's, who attend the ball as well, all "think they're Veronica Lake."

Naturally, all the cadets crowd Su-Su, hoping to snag a spot on her dance card. 

Philip and Pamela try to figure out what her charm is. Philip is naturally nicer about it, but Pamela thinks something's fishy, as someone made a long distance call from the switchboard last night and she doubts it was Su-Su calling her mother. 

Su-Su finds Philip and shows him the dance card (side note: I love details like this in old movies). She saved him the third waltz if he wants it, by holding her thumb over the spot. He writes his name down and the ball begins. 

"Must not!"

"Must not!" 

"Must not!" she tells Cadet Osbourne. He's not fussed. He does most of his dancing at the Stork Club back in New York, you see? Gag. Anyways, after their dance ends he wants to introduce her to his parents, who came all the way from New York to see him. The third waltz is about to begin though, so Su-Su's trying to break away to find Major Kirby.

But Cadet Osborne's stronger, and he drags her over to his parents: 

Hello, Mr. Osbourne! 

He recognizes her but can't recall from where. Susan tries to give nothing away. "I'm from Swedish stock," she says, when he asks about her. She breaks away before he can ask too many questions and finds Uncle Philip, who thought she'd forgotten about him. 

They begin their waltz, but it's quickly interrupted by a telegram from Washington. "Open it, open it!" she cries. He reads it quietly, then a smile comes to his face.

He rushes over to Pamela, thanking her for talking to Cornelia: he's being transferred to active service soon and it's all thanks to her! She knows now what Susan did. 

And when they go outside to discuss their future, Pamela reveals that she never wanted him to go on active service, and that it must've been a mistake. Philip refuses her offer to "fix it" and announces that they'll get married quickly, before he goes off. She says that's not what she wants, and storms back into the ballroom. 

Philip follows a few minutes later, and spots Su-Su dancing with Cadet Osbourne. He cuts in (I love the look on his face here, that's why I chose this particular screencap) and takes her away, and they talk about young love.

He'd once had a dance teacher, she must've been 40 years old, but he had a "terrific crush" on her and at the year-end recital, when he was only supposed to walk up to her and bow, he planted a kiss smack on her lips and almost fainted. 

Meanwhile, Mr. Osbourne's still trying to figure out how he knows Su-Su, and this makes him cotton on:

He walks right over to Pamela and asks about her. "Little Su-Su Applegate," she says, who's staying with the family. He tells her that she looks just like a scalp massager back in New York, a woman named Susan Applegate. 

Su-Su and Uncle Philip end their dance, and at the drink table, Su-Su says she wants to meet him after the dance to tell him a few things she should've already mentioned. They agree to meet back at this very spot at 10:45. 

After the dance, she rushes to dress more age-appropriately for their rendez-vous, and drops in fifty-one cents into the Wallace statue hat on her way to the ballroom. 

Where she runs into Pamela, not Major Kirby. Pamela, who knows about the ruse, tells Susan that she'd sent Philip away, telling him that Su-Su had a stomach ache. The two women talk, and Pamela says that unless Susan leaves right then, not a word to anyone about her true identity, there'll be heaps of trouble for Philip. The kind of scandal that ends careers and ensures that he'll never see active duty.

Utterly defeated, Susan heads back to Lucy's bedroom and wallows. Then Philip shows up and tells her that he's cleared his schedule for Sunday morning, and that, until the train comes to take her back to Iowa, they'll have the entire morning to themselves. 

Lucy tells her that she can't leave now, but Susan is resolute. "You know something?" she asks. "General Wallace owes me fifty-one cents." 

Back in Stevenson...

Susan apparently does nothing except sit in the hammock watching the moths crowd the light bulb, thinking of Major Kirby. 

And it drives her supposed love to the breaking point. Will Duffy, the boring oaf, breaks the light bulb and dashes off, never to be seen again. Good riddance!

And then the telephone rings. "Probably Will Duffy," her mother says. Calling to apologize about his behaviour. Susan goes in and answers the phone, but it's not Will on the other end...

It's Major Kirby! He has a short stopover in Stevenson and he'd like to see Su-Su before his train leaves. Susan adopts an older voice, pretending to be Su-Su's mother and tells him that she's appearing in a school play: Six Who Pass While the Lentils Boil. 

Major Kirby is undeterred. He wants to meet 'Mrs. Applegate' and drop off a present from Lucy (a frog). He hangs up and gets in the taxi.

Now Susan has to scramble. She tries to get her mother in on the subterfuge, but the real Mrs. Applegate can't wrap her head around it. Shout out to Leila Rogers, Ginger's real-life mother! 

Anyways, Susan does what she's good at...

And dresses up like Leila. Does Major Kirby fall for it? Of course he does! "The eyes, the expression! It's amazing!" 

They talk about Su-Su's time at the Wallace Institute and Philip's life changes. He reveals that Pamela married Cadet Lt Wigton's father, he runs a large bank, and would be a better fit for a husband. 

As an officer heading out to war, he doesn't feel like he wants to ever marry and keep a long-distance wife. Another officer with him on the train is stopping in Nevada to marry his girl, but he thinks it's too much to ask of any woman. 

'Mrs. Applegate' tells him that some girls want just that, to be the picture or the tuft of hair in the back of a watch, and that being an officer's wife wouldn't be so bad. 

Major Kirby smiles and thanks her for the advice, but he has to get back to the train station. 

It's only three minutes away when he looks up and spots someone else on the platform.

She looks familiar...

Major Kirby: What is your name?

Susan Applegate: Applegate. 

Major Kirby: Mrs. Applegate?

Susan Applegate: Miss Applegate.

Major Kirby: Su-Su Applegate? 

Susan Applegate: Susan Kathleen Applegate. You see there are a lot of Applegates in Stevenson. 

Major Kirby: Yes, there are. Where are you going? 

She's going to the west coast, she says. But she's stopping in Nevada first, to marry a soldier. He's going to war so that America will be spared what happened in France. But you know, she has her own theory about the fall of France:

"And there was the big Maginot line and the small Maginot line...

"and a Panzer division smacked right through here."

three gifs via connerys

I'm a sucker for a good ending, and this is a great one. It's also the only time they ever kiss (for good reason, obviously, since he'd be a predator if they'd kissed any earlier), and it's very passionate for being so chaste.

Then they run off together to catch the train, stopping in Nevada along the way to the west coast to get married. And then I presume a happily ever after because what's the point if not?

Of course, not everything ages well, and like most classic movies, there are scenes that don't pass muster.

Namely: all the sexual harassment Su-Su has to put up with, first from Mr. Osbourne, who threatens to get her fired; then from all the pubescent cadets jockeying for a minute alone with her at the Wallace Military Institute ("Hard to get? Maybe you can play that with a private, but not with a lieutenant."

What works about The Major and the Minor is that Ginger Rogers absolutely does not look like a 12-year-old; and that Ray Milland's Major Philip Kirby never crosses over into Lolita territory, as Alicia Malone said on TCM once. She doesn't realize that she has a crush on him until well into the movie; and he doesn't realize that he has one back, and his always seems platonic where her's is romantic, until well after her realization.

It's a light-hearted farce; a joke we're in on from the start; one that only works on Ginger's strength as a comedic actress and Ray's effortlessness at imbuing Major Kirby with wide-eyed (if not bum-eyed) optimism about his young, unexpected charge.

If you're looking for Ginger Rogers at her best, I'd definitely recommend The Major and the Minor.