The Major and The Minor, suggested by a play by Edward Childs Carpenter, directed by Billy Wilder - 9.6 out of 10

The Major and The Minor, suggested by a play by Edward Childs Carpenter, directed by Billy Wilder
9.6 out of 10


This release from 1942 has been included on The New York Times' Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made, although it could be more controversial today.

There is after all a relationship between an adult, The Major,  and an alleged Minor, Susan Applegate aka the legendary Ginger Rogers, albeit the plot of the motion picture is more complicated.
The heroine, Susan Applegate, tries to make a living far from her small hometown in Iowa, in the ferocious medium of New York, where she tries various positions, including that of masseuse.

She is sent to offer her services to the married, but philandering Albert Osborne, who makes the joke 'you need to get out of the wet coat, into a dry Martini', but his overall intentions are not appropriate, on the contrary,  he is harassing the poor woman, to the point where she throws the egg meant for the head scalp over his face.
She declares that she has tried everything in this wild city and she has been so bullied, pushed and harassed that she has had enough and is determined to return to her small town in Iowa.

Before embarking on the train, she puts the remaining egg on the elevator assistant that was also abusive in his language and insinuations.

Nonetheless, at the station, she finds that the ticket is more expensive now, and the $ 27.5 she has paid for  the fare to New York, is not enough and she had set aside only this amount.
Seeing as children up to the age of twelve pay half the ticket, she changes her looks, offers a small amount to a stranger to help her get the discounted fare, only to be cheated by the man posing as her father and then kicking him in revenge.

On the train, the conductors are suspicious when she shows the children's book ticket, they ask a few questions and finally realize that she did cheat, when they catch her smoking at the end of the train.
A chase ensues, with the heroine opening the compartment of a man that strangely believes her to be a child, Major Philip Kirby.

Conceivably, this is when the plot could be construed as awkward.
1942 might still have been The  Innocence, but in the present, with so many child abuse stories, among them, a multitude involving Catholic and other priests, the idea of an adult sharing a room or some sort of isolated space with a Minor, for the night, seems not a subject of fun, but of a horror story, no matter how innocent the Major is.

If we would be to take this further, with hindsight, why was the adult so keen and how could the relationship develop, given the initial, forbidding circumstances?
The fiancée of the Major arrives the following day, only to discover the strangest situation, a girl in the privacy of the compartment of Philip and she is furious.

Nevertheless, when the Major takes the 'child Su-Su' - for this is how she had introduced herself- to the judgment of the colonel Hill, father of the fiancée, Pamela Hill, they are all so elated that he had not spent the night with an adult woman.
Instead, they should have been aghast, horrified...they would be nowadays.

We discover that Pamela does not really love the Major, but is interested in the prestige and a future that is exactly her own design, modeled on her terms,exclusively.
Hence the intervention of the Girl-Woman, who would use a clever, amusing tactic and help the helpless Philip Kirby.

The famous dancer even has a few moments of step dancing, which are a pleasure to watch.
The Major and The Minor is definitely a marvelous, major film, although it has that peculiar adult- child rapprochement that could shadow it in a certain light.